


tomorrow you won't be mine

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Series: all my favorite conversations [18]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Divorce, Kid Fic, M/M, Original Character Death(s), love you goodbye au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 16:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12062556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: Louis kisses him. He tastes smoky and salty altogether, an acidic combination of tears and nicotine that has Niall breaking the kiss off for taste almost as much as the feeling that they shouldn’t do this.Niall’s head feels foggy in the way it used to get in the beginning when Louis’d kissed him and he couldn’t believe Louis wanted to. Now he can’t remember the last time Louis kissed him at all. “What -- ”“I just need -- ” Louis swallows hard; his eyes shine when he looks up at Niall. “Niall, we’re alive.”“We are,” Niall admits. In a moment, he gets it, that Louis needs to feel the two of them alive, the two of them together. He needs to find strength in that when everything else is in pieces around them. He can’t even be surprised at himself for folding so easily, for grasping onto Louis when he has nothing else to hold onto.[Or Niall and Louis suddenly become the guardian of their best friends' kid, and the first problem is they're in the middle of a divorce.]





	tomorrow you won't be mine

**Author's Note:**

> this is the last mitam fic. i can't actually believe it. i'm here, you're here, we're here, we did it. i always wanted this one to be the last one, i held onto it for nearly a year. to quote niall - if you don't like it, don't show it on your face, because it took me fucking ages to write this lol.
> 
> this is a little sad sometimes - original character deaths happen off-screen, but are talked about. grief is talked about. divorce is talked about. take care of yourself. if you have any questions, let me know, and i'll be happy to answer them.

The clock on the wall ticks at him, like a personal affront, like each second it marks is another pulsing, relentless reminder of why he’s here. Why he’s here and Louis isn’t.

The solicitor across the table from him clears his throat and refills his glass of water with the pitcher even though it’s nowhere close to empty, just to give himself something to do. His own solicitor, Ms. Edara, is tapping her fingers lightly on the table, looking impatient like she’s going to suggest for the fourth time that the other solicitor give his client a call.

Ms. Edara sighs. “Mr. Horan, perhaps we should… reschedule?”

He refuses to check his phone to see if there’s a text there. He slides his glasses off so even if he glanced down, he wouldn’t be able to read the screen. Embarrassment burns up his throat. Niall steels his jaw for a moment before relaxing enough to say, “He’ll be here.”

None of them look like they believe him. The clock ticks its reminder -- twenty-three minutes late and counting.

He’s twenty-eight minutes late in total, bursting in through the door with an exasperated flap of his hand and apologies to the room full of people who cost about two hundred pounds an hour. He doesn’t spare a glance for Niall as they start their business. Niall’s irritated at him, but even more irritated at the flash that goes through his body, same as it always has every time he sees Louis.

The solicitors are talking about equitable division of assets, and Niall doesn’t really care for any of it. He’d rather just split it all down the middle and call it a day if it means he doesn’t have to talk about it anymore. When he looks across the table, he sees Louis slumped in his chair, his arms crossed, looking like he doesn’t give a shit either.

Niall wants to shout at him, _why are we fucking here, why won’t you just sign the papers, what’s the point of this song and dance_. But he doesn’t. Niall’s long past trying to communicate with Louis about anything.

The meeting feels like it goes longer than it actually does, it feels like hours of Niall listening to people saying things he doesn’t understand, picking their lives apart in stunningly sterile terms. They’re assigning values and legal terms to their relationship, to the love they shared together. Or share together.

They keep referring to Niall as the petitioner. He’s the instigator, the one who filed for the divorce. Things had just escalated, the pressure mounted until it blew up in their faces and the next thing Niall knew, he was googling for solicitors. Because he’s the one who had to do all the work, of course. They’d come to a joint decision, and Niall would be the only one to make it happen.

Louis’ always the idea man, but Niall’s hard pressed to remember a moment where Louis followed through on one of his ideas.

Louis had approached him first at some orientation mixer, asked Niall out to dinner -- Niall made the reservation, dictated the time and place. Louis had asked him to move in with him -- Niall had found the new flat, budgeted for rent and other expenses, hired the moving service, all while juggling a full course load.

Louis had asked Niall to marry him before Niall’d even graduated  -- Niall wrangled two sets of parents trying to figure out who pays for what, two mums and a bunch of sisters with wildly different expectations on how the wedding should go, five straight groomsmen and one bisexual groomslady trying to hire them a male stripper for a joint bachelor party, and one hundred and fifty guests from all over the UK and Ireland.

It must have been pretty easy for Louis. He had it so good. Niall wonders for a moment what he’ll do now that Niall won’t do everything for him. He wonders if Louis even remembers how to take care of himself.

The meeting ends when everyone in the room is mentally exhausted. The solicitors do what they need to, and Niall walks out of the office, holding the door open for Louis like he usually does. Niall’s face flushes; he hasn’t learned how to kick old habits yet. Louis quirks an eyebrow at him, but says nothing. Niall follows him, not close enough to talk, because he’s got so much to say and he’s not even sure where to start. Or if he should even bother starting.

They come to a stop outside the building, where Niall would go left to the carpark and Louis would go wherever he needed to go. Neither of them make a move to separate.

Louis lights a cigarette and sucks in like he couldn’t wait another second, turning his head to exhale like he cares that Niall doesn’t like it. He turns to Niall, something calmer about his whole demeanor, just from that.

“Just say it, the suspense is killing me.” Despite the cigarette, nothing’s calm about his voice, already on the offensive.

Niall bristles. “I wish you would fucking take this seriously.”

“It’s well documented I just don’t know how to do that, isn’t it.”

Niall smarts, his head ducking like a Pavlovian response to Louis’ biting tone. It’s one of their listed irreconcilable differences, true, but to have it thrown back in Niall’s face?

“You’ve always been really good at making me feel like utter shit.”

Louis laughs, mirthless. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Niall remembers being cool once, he remembers letting the lot of it roll off his back, no worries ever, nothing in the world could phase him. He used to take it all in stride, with a smile on his face. It’s too easy to say, _you made me into this, you made me do this, you broke me_. But he doesn’t.

They’re standing at the cusp of another blowout, primed and ready to go at each other’s throats in the middle of an office park. Niall’s the only one with the power to not let it happen, so he does.

“We have a follow up appointment in six weeks. I would send you a reminder, but I wouldn’t want you to think I was trying to control you.” Another irreconcilable difference. It feels wrong turning it on him, but sometimes that’s the only thing Louis responds to -- playing as dirty as he does.

Niall starts for the carpark without waiting for a response. He knows what it would have been, he’d seen Louis’ face start to fall just before Niall turned away. It still sits heavy in his stomach.

He gets in his car, slamming his door shut childishly strong, and he can’t bring himself to turn the car on. He stares dumbly at the tree he parked in front of, his keys rest in his lap, and the weight crushes him. They’re six months into their separation, and Niall’s not sure how much more he can take of it. It took them all of five minutes to decide to get married, young and stupid and not even out of uni yet. And they’ll have to do this dance for years before they’re finished with each other by law.

He remembers Louis sliding a ring onto his finger in front of everyone they loved and pronouncing, “Forever. Forever. Forever.”

He remembers Louis kissing down his body for the first time as his husband and muttering, “Forever. Forever. Forever.”

He was stupid enough to think Louis meant it. He was stupid enough to think he’d be the one person Louis would change for. He was stupid enough to think they were the one exception to what everyone else had said about marrying too young. So really this is all Niall’s fault.

\--

Emma rings on time, as usual, just as Niall’s finished setting up the playmat in the den. He hops over to the door, pulling it open to get an immediate armful of her little lad.

“You’re a saint. You are, honestly,” she says, bustling past him to lay her massive changing bag on the kitchen counter and begins unpacking it. “You would not believe the day I’ve had, honestly, up since four with this one, went fourteen rounds with this little shit at the store on the color cerulean, Roman’s flat out forgotten how to date me, so he’ll be useless tonight. He wouldn’t even come in because he said he’d start crying again handing this one over, and all I’m thinking is thank god for Niall Horan, he’ll be the one constant in this uncertain world.”

Milo gurgles up at Niall, looking about as bewildered by his mother’s tornado-like fervor as Niall is. Niall blinks down at him like _you and me both, kid_.

She turns to him and her face falls just at the first glance. She gets all soft like she’s about to mother him. “Oh, babe. A Louis day?”

Niall’s cheeks flush. “Jesus, is it that obvious?”

“On your face, yes, it is.”

He’s so transparent about Louis, always has been, apparently. Transparent in his fascination, dedication, love, frustration, anger, disappointment. He wipes his face clean as he can, ducking to focus on Milo and pull one of the silly faces Louis likes to trot out whenever Milo’s around.

She eyes the stack of pages Niall took home from the solicitor’s that she’d just dumped a bunch of toys on top of. “D’you need me to talk to him? I will.”

“No,” Niall says with a sigh. “I told you you weren't allowed to take sides. He'd never forgive me.”

He remembers introducing Louis to them, Louis’d scrunched his nose. A nauseating couple to do nauseating couple things with. Niall had laughed so hard when Louis fell in love with them, just as Niall said he would.

“You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do, sir.”

Niall tries not to sour, keeps the smile curled onto his face because it’s got little Milo smiling too.  She sees it anyway, giving his back and rub and suggesting, “We could reschedule?”

He’s tired of rescheduling his whole life because Louis’ made himself inconvenient. “Absolutely not, I treasure my Milo Time.”

“If you’re sure.” She bites her lip, uncertain. She’s never been overly supportive of the divorce, but that’s all she’s ever said about it. _If you’re sure_. Niall’s not sure at all. He just doesn’t have any other options.

“Absolutely sure.” Niall nods firmly. Milo reaches up and grabs Niall’s nose, so he scrunches it a couple times over until Milo’s grip loosens a little. “Look at that dress, give us a twirl.”

Emma obliges him, her skirt full enough to twirl. She poses after, one hand on her hip, one in the air, with a pout on her face.

Niall grins. “You look absolutely gorgeous, petal, I’m honestly not certain you and Roman will even make it to dinner.” He gives a little suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

Emma shrieks and slaps the arm that’s not wrapped around her child. “ _Niall Horan_.” Her face falls into something conspiratorial though, and all her shame melts instantly. “Do you think I should, though? Honestly, the last good fuck we had gave us this one.”

Niall blanches comically, pressing a hand to one of Milo’s ears. “One of us should get a good _f-u-c-k_ , at the very least.”

She nods slowly, her eyes glassing over like she’s already picturing how she wants her night of debauchery to go. Niall puts a hand on her shoulder and starts to lead her towards the door.

“There’s no reason you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Get dinner. If I don’t hear from you by eleven, I’ll assume you’re passed out in post-coital exhaustion and I’ll keep him for the night.”

She sighs dreamily. “Yeah.”

“Have fun.” Niall kisses her cheek, waits for her to kiss Milo’s cheek, then Niall’s, then Milo’s again.

“Bye, I love you, goodbye!” She ducks in for another kiss to Milo’s forehead and Niall wiggles his fingers down the drive at Roman, sitting in the car and looking stressed, before closing the door behind her.

It’s stunningly silent once she’s gone, which Niall supposes he should be thankful for, because it means Milo’s not crying. But it also means Niall’s the only one left, it’s all down to him. Nobody to take the baby away when it’s fussy and Niall’s at a loss with what to do.

He’s read all the parent books, back before they even had their first appointment for adoption, because the only way he could do was attack it clinically. If he had a set of guidelines, instructions as it were -- do this, don’t do this, here’s how you don’t break everything -- he could manage it.

Louis’ always been the kid whisperer, Louis’ always been the one who never had to fake it. He knows when a kid’s hungry or tired or gassy or has just had a wee. He just gets it in a way Niall’s done. He’d have been a great father.

Niall surveys the toys on his kitchen table and goes for the soft Buzz Lightyear he bought Milo himself -- not to be biased or anything. “What does Buzz Lightyear say, kiddo?” Niall asks. “Tooooo infinity, and beyond!”

Milo gurgles, seems to be well pleased with that, and Niall thinks maybe it’s not so hard after all.

\--

Niall wakes because Milo’s crying, and he assumes Milo’s crying because his phone’s ringing, loud and insistent. Niall groans and rolls over to check the clock -- it’s 10 am, and Niall should genuinely get up now, but they've only been asleep a few hours.

He fumbles for the phone, a number he doesn't recognize buzzing, but he answers anyway, a half-hearted _hullo_ on his lips.

A deep but shaky voice, accented and vaguely familiar, answers him, “Hello, Niall?”

“Yeah?” Niall racks his brain for who it is until they answer first.

“This is Nelson, Roman’s father.”

“Hey,” Niall says, scrubbing at his eyes and sitting up in bed like that’s going to help him shake away sleep faster. “Yeah, hey, Nelson, it’s been a while. Is everything okay?”

“Do you have Milo?”

“Yeah, have him over, cos it was date night,” Niall says slowly.

“Oh, thank god,” Nelson says, but it’s not to Niall, it’s muffled, and accompanied by sobbing that turns Niall’s stomach.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re coming over,” Nelson says abruptly before he rings off.

He blinks at his dark phone for a moment until Milo starts at it again, wailing now that he knows Niall’s up and able to suffer with him. He’s paralyzed, though, as the worst thoughts he could have creeps into every inch of his skin, weighing him down until he’s certain he’ll never move again. He gets his meds in, but they don’t make a lick of difference.

Niall thinks the wait is the most agonizing part, until they finally get there, soaked in both the rain and in tears, and they tell him why they’ve come and not Roman and Emma. He hasn’t seen them in a few months, not since the baptism, and the last time they were together, they all had smiles on their faces.

Celia gathers up Milo quickly from Niall’s arms, pressing desperate kisses to Milo’s face, petting his thin black hair, rubbing his back, whispering how much she loves him. Then Niall’s heart drops to the floor and waits for Nelson to confirm the worst. A drunk driver, a bridge, the rain. They’ve already identified the bodies.

Niall thinks he’s going to sick up all over the floor or maybe just collapse because his legs have forgotten how to stand.

“I’m so sorry,” Niall finds himself saying, over and over, until he’s got his arms around Nelson’s back and Nelson’s clutching him just as desperately. Milo starts whining again like he knows something’s wrong, even as a baby he can read the devastation.

They were here, they were here yesterday, and Niall didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye, he didn’t even say a word to Roman. Emma was just a whirlwind, here and then gone, both gone, fucking gone, like Niall needed another chunk of his heart forcibly ripped from his chest this year.

They’re weepy, the three of them, sitting through a whole pot of tea silently in Niall’s living room, like none of them want to be there but they don’t know what else to do.

Niall’s been through it before with Louis, he’s seen others go through it, he knows what loss is like, only it doesn’t feel like he’s lost his best friends so much as they’ve been taken from him.

“We were going to bring Milo home with us,” Celia says, “until we found the will.”

“Emma keeps it in an accordion file above her shoes in the closet,” Niall says, rote and empty, turning his mug in circles in his hands just to have something to focus his attention on. “But I have a copy. I’m the executor.”

He’s also Milo’s guardian, but he doesn’t know how to tell them, if they didn’t know already.

He remembers Emma and Roman sitting the two of them down a few months before Milo was born. They’d asked them both to be the godfathers -- they were dependable, they were in love, they were going to be forever, forever, forever. He remembers when they updated their will, he remembers them asking, that if anything should happen, _god forbid anything should happen_.

They’d agreed easily. They were going to have kids too, at some point, their kids were going to grow up best mates anyway, and besides, the worst could never happen.

Niall never expected that less than a year later, his marriage would die. Niall never expected that less than a year later, Emma and Roman…

He has to call people. He has to let them know. He has to call Emma’s parents in the States, he has to -- he has to call Louis.

He’s got so many things to do, torn between doing everything to distract himself and being too weighted down to do anything at all. He has to do something or he’ll drown, he’ll get pulled under and never resurface.

\--

He can’t catch his breath.

He feels like he’s standing still while the world speeds past him, double time, quadruple time. He’d expected everything to come crashing down around, for everything to come to a shuddering stop, but it didn’t. The world keeps turning around him, relentlessly, and it won’t even give him a second to relearn how to move with it in the aftermath.

It was a beautiful service. That’s what they’re all saying, grabbing his hand and shaking it and saying, “It was a beautiful service.”

The funeral isn’t to mourn the dead, it’s to comfort the living, but it doesn’t feel much like a comfort to Niall at all, the fact that it was a beautiful service. It doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t relieve the pressure in his chest.

A week ago, his biggest concern was his divorce and the impending collapse of his entire life. He’s almost nostalgic for that.

Niall holds Milo like a shield, passing anyone who’d come up to him an apologetic face and a glance down to the sleeping baby. He doesn’t know what else to do, really, to get people to stop telling him about the beautiful service, so they'll stop telling him he's a saint for taking Milo on.

He escapes to the back porch, gently lowering himself down onto the steps out to the garden, cuddling Milo close like it’s the light nearly spring breeze that’s the cause and not that Niall feels stupidly lonely in the midst of everyone he knows and loves.

He doesn’t know what he’d want right now anyway -- to be left completely alone by everyone but the one kid at the party who can’t talk to him or to just be surrounded by someone who doesn’t want anything from him, who’s there because Niall needs them to be.

As soon as he’s deciding it’s the second one, the door behind him slides open.

Louis’ got the carrier in his hand and sets it down on the ground in front of Niall before sitting next to him, not close enough to touch, not close enough for warmth. Louis cleans up so nice, but only for a terrible goddamn reason. He’d even worn Vans to their wedding.

Niall looks over at Louis and feels like a widower and a divorcee at the same time.

“How’s it going?” Louis asks, his voice rough the way it gets when he shouts a lot, when he’s spent all day crying. Niall hates that he knows what that voice is.

“He’s fine, he’s been knocked out for a while. Suppose he got all his screaming out this morning over breakfast.”

“I meant how are you.”

“Oh. Um. Just.” Niall swallows, searches his entire vocabulary for the right words, but can’t find them. “Shitty. I’m just doing really shitty.”

Louis chuckles softly. “Yeah. That sounds right.”

Niall nods absently. Shitty fucking day. There should be some sort of comfort, to know there are others whose pain matches his own. But that’s pretty shitty in and of itself, isn’t it. He’d rather suffer alone than be surrounded by a bunch of people suffering the same way.

“Thought your arms might need a break,” Louis says, gesturing at the carrier.

“I -- yeah.” He looks down at Milo, then at the carrier, trying to connect the two, trying to process the thought of letting him go. “Gonna cramp before long.”

Louis somehow manages to gently maneuver Milo from Niall’s arms into the carrier without a single stirring on Milo’s part, even through the kiss Louis places to his temple and the soft murmuring. Niall’s not been able to do that, not in the whole time he’s kept Milo, and he feels useless with it.

Sometimes he remembers suddenly, and the weight slams down to crush his chest all over again, that he’s not babysitting. It’s permanent. Milo’s his by law, by request, and his parents aren’t going to pick him up in the morning.

Niall bends over, his elbows braced on his knees, scrubbing his hands over his face as he tries to keep from crying again.

“Hey, hey,” Louis says, pulling Niall to him and closing his arms around him. Niall goes easy, just wanting to be held, though he’s not sure if it’s by anyone, or just by Louis.

He kisses Niall’s temple and rubs a soothing hand up and down his back and murmurs softly, little pieces of encouragement Niall can’t translate into words.

Louis spends so much of his time being hard and sharp that the moments he’s gentle feel like a relief, a respite, a gift. It’s part of the reason Niall loves him and part of the reason Niall will miss him.

This feels like a truce, like enemies waving white flags at each other on Christmas Day, awful bloody timing, an awful bloody reason.

Louis smells like cigarettes even though he said he was going to give it up for their kid. Their nonexistent kid, though, to be fair, so it’s not like Louis really has to give up anything. They’d just said they’d make the effort. They’d live their best lives so their kid could live one too. They’d bought a proper house for proper adults, he’d give up smoking and they’d try to eat kale or some shit and play more footie in the backyard because Louis can’t be arsed to do anything else for exercise.

All Niall’s ideas of course. Niall pushing them in the right direction. Louis trailing along, lagging like his motivation is as rough as their shitty internet connection.

They shouldn’t be alone together, they shouldn’t be quiet and wrapped up in their thoughts, because as much as Niall remembers all the things he loves about Louis, he remembers all the things that pushed him over the edge too.

But then Louis whispers, “Fuck, I miss them,” and Niall forgets all that.

He remembers instead Louis is no stranger to grief. The last time he’d worn this suit was to his own mother’s funeral, and even then, he’d been stronger than Niall could have ever imagined. Niall snakes a hand around Louis’ waist to hold him tighter and thinks this isn’t the time to be wrapped up in their failed marriage. Niall should mourn one thing at a time.

He doesn’t know how Louis does it -- he didn’t when Louis’ mum died, he especially doesn’t now. He doesn’t know how Louis can have whole chunks taken out of his body and remain standing. This is Niall’s first real flirtation with death, and he doesn’t know how he’ll ever do this again. The inevitability he’ll do this again scares the shit out of him.

\--

Niall’s set Milo up a nursery in the room in his old office, thankfully -- maybe thankfully -- cleaned out last year in anticipation for their own kid. But he doesn’t put Milo in it. He keeps him in the cot in his room because he can’t be separated from him, not yet.

Milo is out for the count, drained, exhausted, like Niall is, only Niall’s not in bed, he’s puttering around his kitchen holding a bottle of beer and forgetting he’s meant to sip at it. He slides his glasses off, then undoes his tie one handed, pressing the cold bottle to his forehead with the other, unable to bring himself to crack it open.

Yesterday he’d sat at another solicitor’s office, pouring over their will and discussing custody, Roman’s parents struggling to accept their child’s wishes. Emma’s parents’ flight was late in from the States. Niall didn’t even fight for himself, the same way that he doesn’t fight for himself against Louis. He’d just sat there silently, gnawing at his thumb anxiously, as the solicitors had done the arguing for him, discussing things way over his head.

The only thing he’d known, the only thing he’d cared about is that Emma and Roman wanted him to have their kid. The solicitors had discussed his fitness as a parent, impersonal though it wasn’t. Not a matter of aptitude, just of resources. Niall’s single (nearly single), Niall’s got a job with long hours, Niall could fuck off back to Ireland and take the kid with him, Niall this, Niall that, all dancing around the fact that Niall isn’t _family_ without actually saying it.

Absolutely nobody had mentioned the fact that Louis wasn’t in the room. Niall didn’t mention the fact that he didn’t invite him.

Today he’s buried his best friends. Two of them at least, because he can’t quite figure out if Louis is still the best friend he’s ever had or just the person who’s had the unique pleasure of breaking Niall’s heart.

The doorbell rings and Niall leaves his beer on the kitchen counter and walks his way slowly over to the door. He can’t help the stuttering of his heart, the way it pounds rapidly like it remembers it was burned he last time someone showed on Niall’s doorstep. It’s too late an hour for another tragedy.

Louis is on the other side of the door, appearing as if out of thin air, like Beetlejuice, because Niall had the misfortune of thinking about him so much he materialized. Though, to be frank, Niall thinks about him more often than not.

Louis’ still dressed in his suit, still looking devastating and devastated simultaneously. “Hey.”

Niall blinks, bewildered. “Louis.”

Louis steps inside without being invited in, except it still sort of feels like his home, and Niall wouldn’t have told him no anyway. “Is he asleep?”

“Yeah, just put him down.”

“Good.” He looks around, distracted, like maybe he doesn’t recognize their own home. Not much has changed, just Louis’ shit is gone. “Good.”

“Can I -- it’s just, do you need something?”

“Yeah.”

Louis kisses him. He tastes smoky and salty altogether, an acidic combination of tears and nicotine that has Niall breaking the kiss off for taste almost as much as the feeling that they shouldn’t do this.

Niall’s head feels foggy in the way it used to get in the beginning when Louis’d kissed him and he couldn’t believe Louis wanted to. Now he can’t remember the last time Louis kissed him at all. “What -- ”

“I just need -- ” Louis swallows hard; his eyes shine when he looks up at Niall. “Niall, we’re alive.”

“We are,” Niall admits. In a moment, he gets it, that Louis needs to feel the two of them alive, the two of them together. He needs to find strength in that when everything else is in pieces around them. He can’t even be surprised at himself for folding so easily, for grasping onto Louis when he has nothing else to hold onto.

Niall kisses him back because it’s familiar, because it was once right. Because there’s no surer way to guarantee he’s alive and well than the slick movements of their lips, the feeling of Louis’ pulse thumping harder as Niall kisses down his neck, the desperate clench of Louis’ hands on Niall’s hips.

He kisses Louis because it feels good and Niall can’t remember the last time he’s really felt good. Or the last time someone’s just looked at him and thought they’d like to make Niall feel good, to make him feel wanted.

Louis’ fingers pick their way through the buttons at the top of Niall’s shirt until he gets too impatient and starts ripping at it. Buttons go flying and it hangs loosely to display his undershirt. The only other time Louis had done that, Niall had scolded him, his best work shirt ruined, but this time any protest dies on Niall’s tongue when Louis undoes his flies and dives right in.

There’s never any hesitation on Louis’ part, like every inch of Niall still belongs to him, plays him with the familiarity of an expert. Niall’s never not been his. He can’t imagine not being Louis’ the same way he can’t imagine Louis belonging to someone else.

For all his previous rush, Louis undresses himself then Niall slowly, leaves their clothes all over the floor and pulls him onto the sofa, breaking all the rules tonight. Niall lets him. Presses kisses down Louis’ chest instead of reminding him of all the reasons they don’t fuck on the couch -- it’s messy, people sit here, the fabric is scratchy, their bed sheets are Egyptian cotton. Or are they just Niall’s bed sheets now.

He blinks those kinds of thoughts away when Louis presses the ancient bottle of lube into his hands that Niall had forgotten was in that hidden drawer in the ottoman.

It’s not the future Niall wants to dwell on in this moment, but their past. The day they got the ottoman with the hidden drawer, the sly grin on Louis’ face in the furniture shop as he lifted up on his toes and made the casual suggestion of what they should use it for, whispered into Niall’s ear just to watch Niall burst out laughing in front of the salesman.

The day they used it for the first and only time, snorting and laughing in each other’s faces too much to really lose themselves in each other like they should.

Niall loses himself now in memory, in Louis’ red-ringed eyes like he’s going to make them stop looking that way. Loses himself in the way Louis says his name like it’s the only one to bless his lips. Loses himself inside Louis, the heartachingly familiar way they come together. Loses himself in the cold press of Louis’ wedding band against his face as he holds Niall like he’s not going to let him go this time.

\--

He wakes up slowly, lazily stretching out the soreness in his limbs until he remembers why he was sore to begin with. He turns first to the other side of the bed, Louis’ side of the bed, where he remembers Louis falling into and slipping straight to sleep when they finally made their way off the sofa a few hours ago.

He’s distressed to see he’s alone in bed, even more distressed when he turns and sees the cot is empty.

He scrambles out of bed and into the living room, hopping carefully over the crumpled mess of suits they’d left on the floor. He follows the sound of Louis’ voice through the house, quiet but still echoing, and Niall remembers his vow to never tell Louis how well his voice carries with the high ceilings, because Louis would never sing idly again, too self-conscious of the sound of it.

Niall’s breathless with the sight he finds in the kitchen. Louis’ topless, in a pair of Niall’s loose joggers that are stretched enough that they don’t settle right around his hips -- that’s what Niall’s used to, that’s what Niall’s loved. The rest of it is what does him in, the baby cradled effortlessly in one of his arms while the other gently spoons mushed peas into his mouth -- that’s what Niall’s always wanted, that’s what Niall never got.

He almost runs away, backs out of the room so he can digest this in peace, try to rid himself of the anxiety that wrings his stomach, but Louis’ head tilts up and whatever song he was singing quietly cuts off at the sight of Niall.

“Put that away, you’ll scare him.” Louis throws a pointed look down at his dick.

Niall covers himself, even though Milo is focusing intently on slurping up the mush, not even aware someone else is in the room. “Right. I’ll just.”

He scampers back into their room -- his room -- throws on a shirt and digs out another pair of joggers that haven’t seen the light of day recently, not since Niall just keeps washing the same pair and there’s no one around to steal them.

He slips into the loo quickly to swallow a couple of his meds, trying to avoid himself in the mirror even as he blinks into his contacts. He knows if he looked at it, he wouldn’t find someone he recognizes. There’d be the dark circles he’s sort of used to and the perennial stubble he’ll never shave. Beyond that there’ll be the barest trace of wrinkles in his forehead that aren’t from laughter, the weight on his shoulders that he can’t quite nudge off him like he used to, bruises on his neck he knows Louis’ left.

He pinches himself a couple of times, just in case, before he approaches the kitchen again as the tea kettle whistles. Louis’ removing the rag on his shoulder and tossing it in the direction of the bowl of peas. Niall blinks away more sleep, trying to think of any other word besides _family_ when he looks at them.

Louis holds out Milo for Niall, and Niall scoops him up quickly, bouncing him and wandering away so Louis can make his tea in peace. He’s so big, Niall remembers cradling him when he could fit in just the crook of his arm. He swallows around the lump in his throat that forms at the memory of meeting him for the first time, Emma passed out on the hospital bed, Roman crying on and off out of exhaustion and sheer joy as he passed him over.

Louis was late, Louis was always bloody late, but none of it seemed to matter, not with the miracle his best friends had just brought into the world.

Niall holds the Buzz Lightyear up to him, but Milo doesn’t seem as interested in it as he was last week.

Louis tsks at him. “He likes Peppa Pig best.”

“Who’s Peppa Pig?” Niall asks, watching Louis pick up a stuffed pig in a dress to Milo’s delight.

“Who’s Peppa Pig? _Who’s Peppa Pig_ ? My dear Milo, I’m so sorry Niall is _uncultured swine_.” He waggles his eyebrows at Niall at the pun. “He doesn’t even know Peppa Pig!” He makes some sort of snorting noise that Niall supposes his meant to be an oink and it has Milo blabbering at him gratefully.

Milo takes Peppa Pig and beats Niall in the chest with it. Niall thinks maybe he deserves that.

He clears his throat, summoning courage. “We shouldn’t have done that. Last night.”

Louis shrugs and watches his tea steep like it holds the answers to all the mysteries of the universe, instead of paying attention to the issue at hand.

“You understand why that was inappropriate, don’t you?” Niall presses.

“Yes, Niall, I get it,” he says blandly, “you regret letting me seduce you. I’m a bad, bad man.”

Niall scowls at him. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Louis bites, though the sound of it is like a soft hiss instead of a rough snap like it would have been in the past, and Niall realizes it’s because he doesn’t want to upset Milo.  

“Listen, thanks for all this,” Niall says, gesturing at Milo’s breakfast and nothing else, “but I think I’ve got it. You can get back to whatever you need to do.”

Louis’ face falls into something darker. “Niall.”

“You can get back,” Niall repeats, a little firmer.

Louis’ lips thin into an irritated press, and he watches Niall closely, looking like he’s deciding whether to go into a full-on strop about it, more than likely. “Well, if that’s what you really want.”

Without another word, he presses past Niall, scooping up his undershirt to throw it on before he bundles up the other pieces of his suit into a ball under his arm that’ll leave it all wrinkled. He’s gone in less than a minute, barely a few traces that he was ever there at all, just the full mug of tea left on the counter and the tatters of Niall’s dignity all over the floor.

Eventually Niall glances at Louis’ tea, steeped for too long now to truly be drinkable, and dumps it out into the sink.

He knows he’s meant to take Louis with him to Roman’s parents’ solicitors, he’s meant to have Louis sign on to be the other guardian. But he doesn’t. It’ll be another reason he’s got to sit in a sterile office with Louis, god forbid it becomes another reason Louis won’t sign something just because Niall’s asked him to.

The last thing he wants to do is give Louis another reason not to show up. Meetings with the adoption agencies, lunches with Niall’s mum on the rare weekends she comes down, bloody divorce proceedings. He’s not going to do that to Milo, he’s not going to that to himself anymore. That level of disappointment, he’s not willing to put himself through that anymore.

\--

He genuinely can’t risk making a single noise in the house, for fear of waking Milo up again, so he goes into the backyard just to breathe.

They’ve had a week on their own, and Niall’s at his bloody wit’s end.

The one thing he’d liked about only borrowing Milo is he’d be able to give him back at the end of the day. It was never long enough to try his patience. He knows when you’re a parent, you don’t care about any of that stuff anymore. That it gets to the point where everything the kid does, from throwing a fit to throwing food, is still some form of otherworldly magic.

Niall doesn’t get it, not for a second, and wonders maybe that’s why he was never a parent.

His mum was never like this, she seemed to have endless patience. She keeps promising to come down to see Milo when she can, and Niall suspects it’s more to give him her clucking parenting advice in person instead of over the phone. He’s not let anyone come over yet, mostly because he doesn’t want anyone to watch him be absolutely crap at babies.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Niall says, nearly shouts, and that’s about the time he realizes he’s not alone out here.

“Howdy, neighbor,” says the lad on the other side of the fence. He’s topless, or maybe a little more naked than what the fence shows, even though they’re still lingering on the edge of winter. He’s got a purple watering can in his hands.

“Hullo,” Niall says, wondering how soon he can disappear back inside without it seeming rude.

He likes people, he genuinely does, but he’s just exhausted of them. He’d hit his limit at the funeral a week ago, and he’s yet to recover. He’s even gone so far as to getting his groceries delivered, just so he doesn’t have to leave the house, and going for the big shop had always been one of his favorite ways to destress. Not that he’d bring a screaming kid with him to destress.

“I’m Harry. We’ve never met.”

“I suppose we haven’t.” He waves in favor of inching forward to shake Harry’s hand, for fear of what he’ll see over there. “Niall.”

“Niall, it’s nice to meet you.” He bends over to water a plant or two, Niall suspects. He can still see the top of Harry’s hair, wild like uncut grass, sticking up every which way.

Niall self-consciously runs his hand through his own hair, flat and plastered to his forehead because Niall’s not taken the time to style it as he normally would have. It’s strange, the things you give up when all your attention becomes focused on someone else. His hair’s the least of his worries.

“It’s strange, don’t you think, that we’ve never met?” Harry pops up and leans against the fence. “I’ve lived here for about a year or so, and I’ve only just learned your name.”

Niall blinks. Harry talks a drowsy sort of slow that’s difficult to sort through before Niall thinks he can formulate an answer. “I think it’s pretty typical?”

“You think, like back in the Old Days, you know,” Harry says, and even those ten words feel like they’ve gone on for a millennium, “you always see people bringing pies over to the new neighbors, block parties at big holidays, everybody with their noses in everyone else’s business -- although, I have to admit, I’m not too crazy about that last one, I could do without.”

“I think you’ve been watching entirely too much American television.”

Harry grins. “Maybe.”

Niall lets the conversation taper off naturally as Harry tends to his plants and Niall takes a seat in an Adirondack chair he’s never sat in before to spare his bare feet from the ground. He feels guilty talking to Harry, the first real non-delivery person he’s come in contact with since Louis left.

He’s just exhausted. It doesn’t seem fair.

It’s provisional, though, says the nasty voice in the back of his head that tells him he could quit at any moment. There hadn’t been much keeping both sets of grandparents from winning custody of their grandson, and Niall could give it up just as quickly as he was bestowed it. He could sleep through the night again and stop washing sick off his shirts and remember what quiet sounds like.

He honestly could do, he thinks, as Milo starts crying again.

“That's an odd ringtone,” Harry says with a tilt of his head.

“It's not -- it's the kid.” Niall pulls the monitor from the lip of his waistband and looks down at it as though his attention to the monitor somehow equates giving Milo the attention he’s asking for. “I’d be crying all the time if I were stuck with me too.”

“That's not very nice.”

Niall shrugs. “Milo doesn't mind.”

“I meant to you.” Harry’s watching him with what looks on the outside like a lazy stare, but feels like something heavier. Like Niall’s being measured.

He stares and blinks at Harry for a few moments before he startles at the next wave of sobs.

“You should probably,” Harry trails off, gesturing to the monitor.

“Right. Yeah. Right.”

“Be kind to yourself, Niall.”

Niall doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just works out, “I, uh, okay. Thanks,” before he disappears back into his house and locks the sliding door behind him.

Milo needs another half an hour of attention before he’s willing to be put down again. Niall cycles through every lullaby he knows -- not many -- before he moves onto songs that seem quiet enough to be lullabies, a bit of Frank, a bit of Fleetwood. He watches Milo for a while after that, watches the casually miraculous rise and fall of his little chest, watches his face scrunch and smooth at random intervals.

He reminds himself millions of people do this sort of thing every day and they get by. Niall’s not too selfish to give up his whole life for this little one, he thinks, nor should he really need to. He’s got work pressuring him from one end to get going again, he’s got his mum’s sigh filled phone calls trying and failing to nudge him in the right direction, he’s got a kid who just flat out _doesn’t want him_.

He’s got all that, but he thinks maybe he’s got this too.

\--

He doesn’t have it.

In reality, Niall’s got his phone tucked under his ear, spoon in one hand half-heartedly stirring some pasta, the steam fogging up his glasses, as he tries to explain their impending discovery process.

Milo’s screaming like he’s trying to blow out his voice. Like maybe if he doesn’t have a voice, the pain will disappear. Like if he doesn’t have a way to grieve, he simply won’t have to anymore.

Niall feels like screaming too, until there’s nothing left inside him. He blinked and the world’s moved on without him again and he’s running just to jump back into it. Projects don’t plan themselves.

“There’s a competitor analysis -- you know, one thing we firmly believe is zagging where your competitors zig,” he manages to say as he uses his other hand to pop a dummy in Milo’s mouth. It works long enough for Niall to say, “Creating a distinctive brand is all about differentiation. What are you doing to set yourself apart?”

Harris jumps in then, sliding in some of his own practiced sales rhetoric that’ll keep the client spinning long enough that Niall can drain his pasta.

“Absolutely,” Niall agrees on cue, hoping he genuinely agrees with whatever Harris has set him up for. “It’s important to remember that your brand isn’t just what _you_ say about your business. It’s what _they_ say about your business.”

He hums noncommittally about whatever Harris says until he tips the entire fucking bowl of pasta onto the floor, scalding his bare feet. He swears so loud Harris says, “What the bloody hell was that?”

“I just -- I’m sorry, please excuse me,” he breathes out, mashing the mute button before tossing his phone onto the table. His feet are absolutely on _fire_ , just like his sodding career, and he can’t even eat anything himself, let alone get Milo to eat. He won’t eat a damn thing but his own fingers, gnawing on them once he spits out his dummy.

Harris ends the call quicker than Niall can get the phone back off mute, so that’s an opportunity wasted. He’s sure he’ll hear about that later, but he can’t focus on that right now. All he knows is he needs help, or he’ll drown.

He can’t fucking _do it_ , he wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing and Milo knows it. It’s like Milo can read his uncertainty, so he hates everything Niall does. He’s calling Niall on exactly how shit he is at all of this. Maybe the solicitors were right about him. He can’t do it on his own. He probably shouldn’t do it at all.

He calls the first person saved in his favorites.

“Louis,” is all he gets out before Louis interrupts.

“I’ll be right over.” And he is.

Louis lets himself in, finding Milo blubbering in his high chair, Niall sprawled with throbbing red feet and ugly tears at the table, and pasta still all over the floor. Niall melts at the sight of him.

Louis assesses the scene quickly, scoops up Milo and gets him bouncing until he’s quiet, then he runs cool water over a rag. Niall thinks maybe it’s for the floor, but the protest against ruining one of his good rags on tomato sauce is lost when Louis says, “Give us your feet.”

In the space of a few minutes, Louis’ got both of the crybabies calm and clean and under control, and Niall doesn’t know how that’s happened, but he’s grateful. Louis sits down carefully next to him, wrapping his arms around Milo on his lap. He gives Niall an expectant look.

“Everything’s just gone to shit.”

“Tell me,” Louis says gently, and that sets Niall off again.

Milo’s never happy with him. Milo won’t eat anything. Milo won’t sleep. Milo won’t sit still for a bath. Milo waits until Niall’s gotten his nappy off to wee in Niall’s face. Milo misses his parents. Niall misses Milo’s parents. Everything’s just gone to shit.

Milo starts chewing on his fingers again, and Niall points. “That. He keeps doing that.”

“He’s teething, love, it hurts a bit.” He gets up and washes one of his hands while somehow managing to keep Milo upright and happy, like it’s not even a concern, and even then, Niall can’t find any trace of resentment in him for how easily Louis’ got it. He’s just relieved it’s not him.

Once Louis sits back down, his fingers move gently into Milo’s mouth and Milo pitches an even bigger fit. Louis doesn’t seem to care.

“He doesn’t like that,” Niall says with a frown.

“He’s fine.”

Niall doesn’t like how flippant he sounds, like maybe after all this, Louis isn’t going to take this as seriously as Niall is. “He’s crying.”

“He’s _fine_ , give it a mo.”

Sure enough eventually Milo relaxes against him, his face still scrunched, but he’s not wailing. It’s like a fucking miracle.

“There we go,” Louis encourages quietly.

Niall remembers then very quickly something from a book he had read ages back. Massaging the gums and all. He should find where he’d hidden those books. Then he wouldn’t have to lean on anyone.

At the end of the night where Louis does all the work and Niall barely manages to boil a new pot of pasta, Niall sort of expects Louis to go. Like the terms of their stalemate is over. Louis’ won because he’s proven that he’s better at kids than Niall is, and that’s another thing he can hold over Niall for the rest of their lives.

“Christ, I’m exhausted,” Louis says, flopping onto the sofa like he’s got an invitation to kick his feet up. “Could use a beer or seven.”

“I threw them out.”

Louis quirks an eyebrow.

“I can’t -- they -- they died -- ” Niall shakes his head, realizing that saying the words out loud seems a bit daft, really, that he couldn’t stomach the thought of drinking a single beer when a drunk driver killed their best friends. But it’s still true.

“Okay,” Louis says easily.

Niall’s heart leaps up and up in his chest, like it’s struggling to break free by way of Niall’s throat. He sits down gently next to Louis and does what he’s supposed to do. “Thank you, I just. God, thank you.”

Louis runs a hand through Niall’s hair, smoothing it like he used to before he’d destroy it again and laugh. But this time, he just keeps smoothing it. “You should get some sleep, you look dead on your feet.”

“Milo -- ”

“How about I stay on the sofa tonight, hm? If he wakes, I’ll get him.”

Niall finds himself nodding before he can think better, the overwhelming desire to be done with it all taking over. He wanders off to his room with a quiet _night, Lou_ , and flumps right onto his bed, clothing and all, wishing for sleep to come quickly so he doesn’t think about whether he can trust Louis with this sort of responsibility.

He’s great at the short-term stuff, but commitment has never been his style. The one thing in his life he’s committed to the longest -- Niall -- has finally gone up in flames. Niall supposes he was only a matter of time.

The door opens and Niall startles, ready for Louis to give any number of reasons why he’s got to leave.

“Need the monitor. Don’t mind me,” Louis whispers, picking his way deftly across the room and back. Niall hadn’t even told him where it was.  

\--

Niall has the worst sense of deja vu, waking up alone, knowing someone is here but not next to him. Louis’ got Milo in the kitchen. Niall walks to them carefully, embarrassment in every step like he's walking to judgment. He's failed so spectacularly, so publicly, and Louis can be unforgiving when he wants to be.

Louis doesn't say anything when he sees Niall but, “I’m trying to make breakfast, but there’s nothing in but baby shit and pasta.”

“I’ve not been to the shops in -- a while.”

Louis looks at him like he’d grown a second head. “You’ve not been to the shops? _You_. Niall Horan. Who practically owns stock in Tesco, how often you go in there. Haven’t been to the shops?”

“I’ve been busy,” he says, defensive in an instant.

“Oh, love.” It's not disappointment, but it is pity. “Get dressed. Man cannot live on pot noodle alone. You taught me that. Repeatedly.”

“Milo -- ”

“He'll be fine. We’re going out.”

Niall jams a cap on his head and finds himself ready to go out in fifteen minutes, a slight thrill running through him that they're actually going out. It's the first time he's thought about the world outside his house with something approaching interest.

And it turns out to be far easier than Niall ever thought it would be. Because instead of Louis trailing him slowly through the store, offering no opinion on which kind of bread to get or trying to steal the trolley so he can surf it down an aisle, he’s trailing with Milo, the two of them making absurd noises back and forth at each other while Niall stares for a long time at a package of chocolate hobnobs before he decides he needs to start eating better.

He wonders maybe why they’ve come at all, considering Niall’s doing all the work, but Milo seems to like it, his eyes flicking this way and that like he’s trying to take in all the bright colored boxes he can find. It’s perfectly fine and efficient, the big shop, until Louis dumps Milo into his arms in the middle of the pasta aisle with a hasty, “I’ll be right back” thrown over his shoulder as he’s speeding away.

He looks after Louis for a moment, then looks down at Milo, who’s blinking over at a blue and red box. “Farfalle, huh? What d’you reckon, that’s Italian for bowtie? Looks just like a bowtie. Would you like a bowtie made of pasta? You’d look like a dapper gentleman.”

He gets sidled up next to by an older lady, gentle looking by all accounts, but Niall still has to fight the urge to tilt Milo away from her. He still needs a bit of privacy and all, and it’s well documented that all old ladies everywhere think they have permission to touch strangers’ children.

“What a precious boy,” she says, even as he buries his face in Niall’s neck. Niall feels the same. “How old is he?”

“Uhh,” Niall starts, racking through his brain, trying to work out the maths.

“Just gone seven months,” Louis supplies suddenly, wrapping himself around Niall’s back and hooking his chin over the shoulder that Milo’s not on. It’s comfortable. Familiar.

Niall nearly shivers at the thought that he has both of his boys clinging to him, one on each side, enveloping Niall with everything he’s ever wanted. Only it’s not real. Suddenly, none of this feels real.

She’s saying something else, holding quite the conversation with Louis that Niall can’t hear over the rushing sound in his ears that doesn’t clear until Louis says, “Yeah,” and presses a kiss to Niall’s shoulder.

Niall doesn’t say another thing, lets the conversation burn on its own until it flickers out, all the invasive questions have been asked and answered -- not much of it the truth. The kid looks nothing like either of them, all tanned skin and dark hair. He looks adopted, but no one knows it’s because his parents have passed on. He swallows down the impulse to correct them.

Once she leaves, Louis reaches around him and drops two packs of hobnobs in the cart with a wink.

Niall finds his voice again. “What have you done that for?”

“You wanted them. You can treat yourself sometimes, Nialler, it’s not going to kill you.”

“No, with that lady -- she thinks we’re a couple now.”

Louis quirks a judgmental eyebrow. “Well, I’m not exactly about to explain the intricacies of our weird relationship in the pasta aisle of the Tesco’s to someone’s unsuspecting nan.”

“You didn’t -- ask me if that was okay.”

Louis purses his lips impatiently before he asks, “Is that okay?”

“Well. I mean, I guess,” Niall stutters, flustered. It’s hard to say anything otherwise now that it’s happened, and he supposes it was harmless. But it took him off guard, scrambling to race after Louis like he always does the rare times Louis makes a decision and runs with it. There’s never any discussion. It’s just whatever Louis wants.

“Then there you go.”

“You should still ask me. Even if you know I’m going to say yes. You shouldn’t just _assume_ \-- ”

“Okay. I’m sorry.” Louis collects Milo again, pops him on his hip. “Next time I’ll stop in the middle of a conversation to ask you if you’re okay with telling a quick white lie to make our lives easier.”

Niall smarts, says nothing, just grabs the box of farfalle and starts making his way to checkout even though he’s not gone through half the store. It’s quiet as Niall pays for all the groceries himself, quiet on the ride home, quiet as Louis makes them both breakfast. Reminiscent of the silence that overcame the last few months of their marriage until Niall filed for divorce, neither one speaking because they seemed only to be capable of pissing the other one off when they tried.

He doesn’t know how to gently explain maybe Louis’ outstayed his welcome, that Niall got a bit stressed last night, but he’s got it now. He knows the teething trick, he’ll find the small stack of his parenting books. It won’t happen again.

Eventually Louis gets the hint and leaves. Without a word.

\--

Milo sleeps for more than four hours at a time on a Friday night, and Niall, though elated, is still up at the crack of dawn worrying over him. Sneaking into the room every half an hour or so just to make sure he’s okay when he’s not heard a peep over the monitor. Louis must have proper worn him out the day before. Sometimes silence can be a beautiful thing.

He almost has a fit when the doorbell rings -- nearly has a mind to swear at whoever’s on the other side. Milo’s still not stirred, but they _might_ have woken him up, and then there would be hell to pay.

It’s Harry. Clothed, which is nice, with a friend, which Niall supposes is also nice, but he’s not entirely in the mood for company.

He blinks at Harry. “Hello, Harry.”

“Hello, Niall. This is my flatmate, Liam.”

He blinks at Liam. “Hello, Liam.”

Liam nods after him, amused.

“I brought biscuits! I used to work at a bakery.” Harry pushes his way into the house uninvited, but Niall supposes he probably would have gotten around to that eventually.

Behind him Liam shakes his head very slowly with his eyes wide open, like a clear message not to eat any of them. Niall nearly laughs.  

He closes the door after the two of them and follows Liam, who follows Harry into the kitchen.

“Thanks, Harry, that’s very kind,” Niall says, taking the container and placing it near the giant pile of empty containers he’s been collecting since the funeral and hasn’t bothered to return. Returning them means going to see people or paying out the nose for postage, and Niall’s not in the mood for either.

“I was going to bring you a pie, like we talked about, only I’ve never made one before. So.” Harry shrugs and smiles at him.

Niall lets Harry and Liam stand innocently in his kitchen for a while until he calls them on it. “When did you find out about my friends?”

Harry tries to play it off for a moment, but then appears to think better of it. “I met your husband yesterday, he’d told me.”

“We’re sorry for your loss, truly, it’s utter shit,” Liam adds.

Niall grits his teeth so he doesn’t say anything stupid. This is exactly why he’s not told anyone -- anyone who didn’t need to know -- so he doesn’t have to do this. So he does have to see the softness in Liam’s eyes, the way Harry looks like he’s about to launch forward and collect Niall in a hug. The kind of thing that turns strangers into stuttering messes because someone else’s grief is this awkward, unmanageable thing.

He doesn’t want to share it with anyone. Not really, not with anyone but Louis, and he just -- can’t do that.

“Thanks,” Niall says eventually, when he remembers his manners.

“I just thought -- we just thought -- ” Harry looks over to Liam for help.

“You might need a friend or two,” Liam finishes.

That grips Niall’s stomach harder, more unforgivingly than anything they’ve said so far. He can’t stop himself from picturing the two of them trying to fit themselves into the hole Emma and Roman have left in him, too big for anyone to consider. It feels… disrespectful.

They’ve left him, but they haven’t gone. Niall’s not ready to fill that hole, doesn’t know if he could. Not while he’s got Milo, not when they’ve decided he’s going to be responsible for the single most important thing in their lives.

“I’m not -- I’m sorry. I just, I’m not in the market. To replace them.”

“No, we -- ” Harry starts, but Liam puts his hand on his arm and he cuts off. He looks between the two of them. “Right. Yeah. Maybe if you ever just need a sitter instead, like. Hit me up. I’m excellent with kids.”

Niall glances over at Liam for confirmation, who gives him a thumbs up and a confident nod. It’d certainly solve some of his problems, that Celia can only watch him on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that he’d have to give Milo up to strangers any other day of the week.

Not that Harry isn’t a stranger. He just feels. Familiar. Like when you know, you know. He knew about Roman the moment he’d met him, and --

Niall sighs, but he means it when he says, “Yeah, thanks, Harry, I’ll definitely give you a ring.”

\--

Louis calls him first, breaks the stalemate for the first time in his life. To ask after Milo, to see how he’s doing, how his teeth are treating him -- skirting but not entirely coming out and saying, _hey, have you been fucking up this kid’s life_?

“Shall I come over tomorrow?” Louis asks. Niall freezes long enough for Louis to say, “I, uh, I miss him.”

There’s a small twinge in his chest knowing Louis misses the baby. It’s not that Niall’s been keeping him from Milo, it’s just. Niall needs to figure it out on his own if he’s going to stick with it. “Sorry, I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“Yeah?” It’s weird, honestly, Niall doesn’t know how to argue around it.

Because it’s not like Milo’s a newborn, and it’s not like he gets bereavement leave for friends, so they’ve just sort of… let him go for a few weeks to get adjusted with a very heavy suggestion that he needs to get back into the office soon. That’s how they work, really, by heavily suggesting Niall do things like work ten hours a day and all. But it’s understood. It’s part of the business.

And it’s one of the things they fought about often.

“I’ll come ‘round to watch him then. D’you still leave at seven?”

His hands twitch for a beer that isn’t there, the house still dry as a bone because he still can’t fucking do it, because the thought of having a drink still burns up his throat. But it might be easier to let Louis down gently if he’d had a little liquid courage within him, if he was loose enough not to care.

“I -- yes, but. I was going to hire Harry, you know, next door.”

“Harry?” Louis gives a mirthless laugh. “That kid does naked yoga on his roof at sunrise.”

Niall blinks. He didn’t even know Harry really existed before they’d met in his garden -- albeit, Harry was also undressed in his garden. He can’t imagine how Louis would even know that. Not that that’s important.

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do, I have to get back to work.”

“Yeah, weird, almost as though Milo doesn’t have another guardian,” Louis deadpans.

“You don’t have to get back to work?” Niall snaps, waiting for the non-answer he knows he’s going to get. Louis doesn’t provide it. “Or are you not working?”

He remembers one of their last big fights just before they stopped fighting altogether, back when Louis’d quit his job at the bar. Niall had snapped at him, “You don’t even have a backup job. You just did it because you bloody wanted to, not because it was _right_.”

“I did it because of you,” Louis’d said, and it was altogether unfair to put that on Niall. “Because I never saw you, because you were up at 6 am, and I was rolling in at 3 am. We’d sleep next to each other for a few hours, we’d maybe get the weekends, and that’s it. I missed you and it was killing me.”

It was hard to find anger then, but Niall’d found it anyway. There was always something wrong about Louis leaning on Niall to make their mortgage, to pick up utilities just because his job paid more. He fucking hates his job sometimes, same as Louis had the bar, but it doesn’t mean he can just up and quit.

He’d never have done it, quit, not without talking to Louis about it first, and maybe that’s what stings most. It wasn’t a joint decision, the decision of a married couple. It was the decision of someone selfish, thinking of themselves as a single and not as a unit.

Louis’ quiet for a moment, torturous, like calm before the storm, but instead he says, calmly, “I am working. Not that it’s any of your business, but they’ve offered me paternity leave. A proper one.”

Niall pauses, his eyes dropping. “I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you didn’t. Keep kicking me out the bloody house before we can even have a proper conversation.”

Niall sighs and says nothing because his mind’s flooded with a hundred different reasons why this is a bad idea. He doesn’t need Louis, he can do this on his own. It’s what other parents do, they get sitters and hire out and handle it. He can handle it.

“Niall,” he says quietly. “I just -- I need to do this. Okay?”

A hundred different reasons Niall’s got to say no, and he says, “Okay.”

\--

Louis texts him a picture at lunch of Milo’s face broken into a big smile, his mouth wide and open, his eyes scrunching shut with the force of it, like he’s in the middle of a laugh, although he doesn’t quite laugh yet. It breaks Niall’s heart in two.

“All right, dad?” Andy jokes, slinging his arm around Niall’s shoulders.

Niall tries not to startle so much. He sets his phone face down on the counter. “Yeah, I’m just. Worried about the kid.”

So worried he’d barely been able to make it to work, had cruised the motorway so unsurely he thought he might just turn around any second and race back home. He thought he’d like a bit of peace, but the second he’s got it, he misses the wailing.

“It’ll get easier. So I hear.” He thumps at Niall’s back just as Niall starts to precariously slide his lunch out of the microwave. It tips but Niall manages to keep the sauce in its tray. “Listen, some of the girls were wondering if we should throw you a baby shower or sommat.”

Niall blinks. “I -- really?”

“Yeah, new dad and all. We did something up for Karen last week -- not that you were _here_.” He pauses to make a face at Niall that’s meant to make Niall feel guilty. “So, yeah. Fair’s fair.”

“That’s -- I mean, they had -- pretty much everything,” Niall stutters out. God knows what they’ve said about him since he’s been gone.

“That’s what I told them,” Andy says quickly, picking himself off the counter. “Listen, we’ll need that project plan for Alabaster by 7, okay?”

“Tonight?” He hasn’t got a clue what Alabaster is, let alone how to plan the project. He’s barely caught up on his emails.

“Yeah, you’re good for it, best in the business,” Andy says on his way out.

“Sure,” Niall agrees quietly. Andy’s already left the breakroom.

He looks at his microwave lunch, something that should be so familiar to him. This doesn’t feel like his life anymore, not after the last three weeks. It’s jarring to be inserted back into it so quickly.

_Might have a late nite .,_ Niall taps out, bracing himself for what’s sure to be an endless stream of criticisms from Louis. He carefully carries his lunch back to his desk, instead of staking out a quiet part of the breakroom to insist Louis Facetimes him just to make sure they’re okay.

When Louis’ response comes in, it’s less harsh than he expects, _Fine, but i’m eating all your food. Starting with the biscuits on the table…._

The last time they’d talked about it, truly talked about it, they’d screamed themselves hoarse. It had included something about Niall fucking his spreadsheets, or maybe just Niall’s fucking spreadsheets, he doesn’t really remember. They were both pretty drunk at the time.

It had boiled down to Niall being a people pleaser when it came to everyone but Louis, who he apparently lived to spite. Irreconcilable difference number forty-seven.

Niall stabs at the pale meat that calls itself his lunch and clicks around until he finds something called Alabaster. It’s hours of staring, music pumping through headphones, lunch half-forgotten, not a single wee break in sight, before he resurfaces to an empty office and a couple of texts on his phone. Just like the old days. Perhaps it’s not so jarring after all, he just falls back into it with a practiced ease.

His phone has for him a couple of texts from his mates, the lads he’s just not ready to get back with. He shoots off a few messages, just to mollify them, and moves to what he really wants -- the picture of Louis, Milo nearly on his shoulders.

Louis’ frowning in disgust, Milo is in no way playing along, his eyes going nearly cross-eyed as he stares open mouthed at the screen and not the lens. It’s captioned, _these fucking biscuits are awful, what the fuck !!_

Niall grins in spite of himself.

\--

He goes to work and comes home immediately, telling himself he hasn’t got time for anything else, not the gym, not his therapist’s, because it feels selfish, it feels like a failure if he’s leaving everyone else to do his job as guardian.

The leaving doesn’t get easier, but once there’s a routine, Niall understands what he can expect. Louis shows up Monday and Wednesday stays long enough for Niall to cook himself dinner, then clears out.

Celia comes Tuesday and Thursday, somehow managing to take care of a kid all day, as well as clean and organize three different rooms, completely ignoring Niall’s protests in the motherliest way.

She seems to want someone to take care of, doesn’t much matter who it is. Niall has to stop himself from saying, _sorry it has to be me_. It’ll be a month on tomorrow. Niall hasn’t a clue where the time’s gone.

“ _¿Que tal, mijo?_ ” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to Niall’s temple once he sets his briefcase down on the kitchen table.

“M’good.” He sneaks in for a kiss to her cheek. “Behaving?”

Milo looks up at him from his high chair, his eyebrows crooked as if he could possibly resent the implication.

“He’s an angel,” Celia answers. “We ate an avocado today. We love avocados, don’t we?”

“Avocados are loads better than peas. Eugh, peas.” He makes a face at Milo and pokes at his stomach gently, getting a squeal for his troubles.

“Don’t teach him not to like peas.” Celia swats at him, but he dodges it easily, laughing his way to the refrigerator for a water. When he turns back, she’s crouched in front of Milo, petting at his hair. “Roman hated peas. When he was a kid, he’d hide them in his napkins so he wouldn’t have to eat them. As if we didn’t know.”

His lips quirk at the hint of a smile. It was Emma’s least and most favorite thing about him. They’d made bets about it, played their own sort of Call or Delete until Roman broke too soon, cackling. “He was a terrible liar,” Niall says fondly.

“Then he’d eat them one pea at a time, he’d surround it with a spoonful of potatoes or a large cut of beef, just so he couldn’t possibly taste it.”

“That’s a good trick.”

She wipes gently at Milo’s face, collecting up whatever’s gathered at the edge of his lips and spilled over. “You have to eat your peas, okay, my love? You must eat them.”

“I’ll make sure he does.” He rubs at her back soothingly until she straightens and flaps her hand.

She grins at him wetly, looking stronger than Niall’s ever been probably in his life. “Have a seat, I’m making you chicken.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

She presses at his shoulders until he begrudgingly takes a seat next to Milo. “I do, _mijo_ , and I’ve left you a rub in the pantry. I want you to use it.”

“Christ, you forget the seasoning one time,” he grouses, rolling his eyes. Milo’s hand curls around Niall’s finger when he holds it out to him. Milo doesn’t judge. Often.

“Watch your language.”

She’s such a mum it clutches at his heart, she gets it, the way Louis does. There’s that sort of practiced ease, that complete surrendering of self that makes Niall feel like the single most selfish person he’s ever known.

There’s not much to keep him from feeling like a glorified nanny, because he still gets that odd shift in his stomach when someone refers to his _son_ . It’s the thing that makes him want to say, _oh, he’s not my son._

Not because he doesn’t love Milo, he does. Milo just isn’t _his_. He’s Roman and Emma’s boy, only Niall gets to keep him forever. He doesn’t understand how to think of himself as Milo’s dad.

He’d throw himself in front of a bullet for the kid. Is that all it takes? Is that enough to battle the absolute exhaustion he feels just trying to do the right thing? Because the rest of it, the fact that he just needs time to himself, that he can’t be on all the time, leads him to believe he’s not fit for it.

_What if I was never meant to be a dad?_ he thinks, but then wonders if maybe he just wasn’t meant to be one alone.

\--

Niall gets home later than he wants to Friday night, moves straight past the kitchen and the leftovers Louis’ left on the table for him to find Louis’ moved Milo into the spare room like he’s asked him to. He thought Louis would put it off long enough that Niall was just going to do it himself, like he’d always done. It’s a pleasant surprise.

He leans in the doorway quietly and watches them, that swooping sort of feeling he gets watching Louis be a dad attacking him mercilessly.

Louis stands before the cot, rocking Milo back and forth gently. He’s got his phone in one hand before Milo’s face, and he murmurs gently, “I’m afraid the only video I’ve got is ten seconds from your dad’s stag do. Just. Don’t tell Niall, okay?”

Niall recognizes the video just by the sound of it, they’ve watched it some fourteen thousand times. Milo barely watches, still uncertain of the purpose of a screen.

They’d gone to Ibiza, Roman shouting some shit about getting back in touch with his Spanish roots. Hardly the place for it, but they’d indulged him, three full days risking alcohol poisoning. In the video, Roman had just run in and out of this bed of fire, Niall cackling hard enough to be heard over Roman hollering, “ _Fucking legend!_ ”

“Don’t say that ‘til you’re older,” Louis says, switching the video off quickly. “Your dad was a proper lad, just like you, eh? Little lad.”

He looks like a dad too, soft and patient and open. He makes it look so easy. Milo’s head goes to Louis’ shoulder, he’s quite ready for bed.

Niall snaps a quick picture with his phone, locks it before he even checks to see if it’s a good one, just so he doesn’t get caught. “Hey,” he says, coming into the room. “What did we do today?”

“We skyped your grandparents in the States, didn’t we? Memaw and Pawpaw?”

“Memaw and Pawpaw?” Niall gasps, slapping his hands onto his cheeks and looking proper shocked. Milo appears slightly amused, his big brown eyes trained unblinkingly to Niall’s face.

“They invited us over to celebrate his first.”

Niall hums. He doesn’t know what to think of that.

Louis doesn’t ask him anyway, he asks Milo. “Would ya like that? The three of us in the Windy City?” Milo doesn’t appear to have a response to that, so Louis starts to croon, “ _Start spreading the neeeeewws._ ”

Niall finds that smile he was trying for then. “That’s New York, lad.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.”

Louis crooks his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

“Well, it’s got the words New York in it in like two lines, so. Yeah.”

“My sincerest apologies to Frank Sinatra.”

“I accept on his behalf.” Niall plucks the kid out of Louis’ arms and goes off himself. “ _Myyyyy kind of town_ \-- oh, buddy, you reek -- _Chicaaaago is._ ”

He does up Milo’s nappy at the station Louis’ put up in the corner. He starts to get fussy, quite tired of people pestering him -- Niall quite knows the feeling. He hums quietly as he gets Milo ready, more of Frank’s best, because no matter how much Louis makes fun of his old man music, Milo likes them too.

Usually Louis’ about to head out by now, once they switch off. But he can feel Louis in the corner, watching him. It doesn’t feel judgmental, the heat at his back, and Niall can’t really tell him off. He’s guilty of the same damn thing.

Louis yawns when Niall looks at him after Milo’s down for the count, so Niall stupidly asks, “Tired?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice a sleepy sort of soft as if to reinforce the fact.

He could fall asleep at the wheel, he could -- Niall couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t lose anyone again. He tells himself that’s why he says, “Stay.”

“What?”

“I’ll make up the sofa. It’s late. Don’t want you driving.”

Louis watches him for a while before he says, “Okay.”

He follows Niall into the master, where Niall digs out a pair of joggers for him as Louis disappears into the loo.

“M’using your toothbrush,” Louis calls.

Niall sighs, “No, Lou -- I have -- ” Extras.

“Too late,” he interrupts, muffled around the toothbrush.

“Fuck’s sake,” Niall mutters, padding after him with the joggers in hand.

The toothbrush sits suspended at the edge of his mouth, some foam threatening to drip down onto his shirt. Niall’d tell him he was a mess and Louis’d try to kiss some of the paste onto Niall if this were years back. But it’s not.

Niall knows that because Louis’ got the medicine cabinet open and Niall’s bottle of pills in his hand. He doesn’t look up at Niall when he asks, “What are these?”

“Anxiety meds.”

“Since when?”

Since Louis moved out is the answer Niall doesn’t want to tell, though he’s certain he should have been taking them long before then. Louis’d always hated it back in uni, the thought that he wasn’t enough to get Niall calm and laughing. He’d never understood it was deeper than that.

Eventually they thought Louis was enough. Niall’d stopped refilling them after they’d gotten back from their honeymoon. He knows he shouldn’t have.

Niall plucks the bottle out of Louis’ hand, restores them, and shuts the cabinet. “A while.”

He puts Louis to bed on the sofa without humming, just going about the business of setting it up for sleep, even though Louis knows where everything is and is able-bodied. Louis hasn’t even stayed the night and Niall’s wondering how long might this go on, the way it had for his parents for at least a year when they were getting a divorce.

His da would come over for dinner, like they were proving a point about still being amicable, friends, and he’d stay well after his shows were on, knocking out on the sofa more often than going back to his flat.

Niall hadn’t understood it then - if Bobby were just going to stick around, he hadn’t thought there was much point in getting a divorce. He’d offered once to move into Greg’s room so Bobby could have his room, if it was just that he snored and his mum didn’t want to hear it anymore. He remembers Bobby laughing at him, quiet and resigned.

Niall understands a lot more now than he did then.

\--

Niall wakes up to Louis shouting right in his face. “Wake up, Potter! We’re going to the zoo!”

Niall groans, buries his face into his pillow. “It’s cold outside.”

“Niall, one of the people in this house has never seen a snake before. That's an international tragedy.” Louis snatches up the pillow and Niall can hear it land with a flump on the floor as his head bends awkwardly down onto the mattress.

“Is it?” Niall cracks an eye open at him. He’s already dressed and ready to go before Niall’s out of bed. That’s… that’s not normal. “Is there a hashtag trending I should know about?”

“Yes, it’s hashtag get the fuck up out of bed because we’re taking the little lad to the zoo.”

“Sounds like too many letters for twitter.”

Louis strips all the blankets off the bed in one go, the cold air hitting Niall like a full body slap, and then he walks away with them trailing after him like a train.

“Fucker,” Niall shouts after him, a laugh bubbling up in his chest.

Niall lets Louis take them to the zoo.

He does like the zoo. Even if it’s a bit of a production, packing everything he owns into a bag just in case the baby needs it, some sort of overpreparedness mania overcoming him that he’d never understood in parents before now. Milo should be plenty amused by everything the zoo’s got to worry about bringing Peppa Pig, but he packs it nonetheless.

Milo likes the zoo too, from what he can tell, because from Louis’ arms, he presses a hand against every glass he encounters and stares furiously at whatever’s hiding in the enclosure, whether he can see it or not. Sometimes he looks back at Niall, like he’s checking to see if Niall’s looking too.

And he is, he’s always looking, because there’s something like a miracle happening every time Milo discovers something new, every time he hums at Louis when he asks what lions say, and it pretty much makes up for the screaming fit Milo had in the car the whole way here.

Maybe they’re not taking him out of the house enough that he’s still lightly traumatized by the thought of getting in a car. It’s not like -- he doesn’t _know_ what happened to his parents, surely. He’d wanted to ask Louis if he’s fucking Milo up without even knowing it, if he’s projecting some sort of trauma onto him about cars, and because babies are oddly perceptive of that kind of shit, he’s like… broken.

But he knows Louis’d tell him he’s being an idiot, so he doesn’t ask.

Niall’s doing up a fairly impressive impression of a monkey when Louis looks over at him with big eyes, almost like he’s afraid to say what he’s got to say. “The snake exhibit is closed.”

Niall shrugs, but then, because Louis looks quite crestfallen, he slides an arm around his waist. “That’s all right, Tommo, we’ll get it next time.”

“Yeah, but this is like. The one thing. Like I planned it.”

“I know. It’s okay.” He’s got both boys in his arms for a while, each of them leaning against him like he’s all they need in the world. It’s -- nice. And it doesn’t feel real, cuddled outside the snake exhibit. They’re a family, Niall hesitates to think. They look like a bloody family.

He nudges them back down the path, past other families about to disappoint themselves at the door. He thinks maybe he should warn them, but he doesn’t. Sometimes people just gotta find out things on their own.

Louis pops his third piece of gum for the day and Niall laughs. “Are you worried about bad breath? Because I'm pretty sure I've smelled it all from you.”

“Quit smoking.” He chews furiously, like the gum has done him some sort of wrong.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it’s a fucking nightmare -- ah, sorry, miss.” He holds a pacifying hand up to the lady shooting him daggers at having sworn and gives Niall a faux guilty look.

Niall doesn’t quite know what to do with it, so he doesn’t do anything at all. He wants to tell Louis he’s proud of him, but that’d just be one more thing Louis might think Niall’s lording over him. Another time Niall won and Louis lost. Even though Niall’s not said anything in months.

Roundabout the giraffes, Louis scrubs at the back of his neck and lays his second bombshell of the day, after a five-minute set on whether he could jump high enough to feed one. “I’m thinking about moving.”

Niall looks at him, the thought eating at him. Months ago, he might not have given a fuck where Louis moved, so long as the lawyers took care of everything. But now -- it’s different.

“Found a couple of places nearer yours.”

“Yeah,” Niall allows, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “That’s a good idea.”

It’s not so much the thought that this is how it was that trips Niall up. Because this wasn’t how it was, not for a long time, never anything this soft and easy. It’s the thought that this is what it could be that has him wanting to run scared, clutching Milo and the fucking duffle bag of nonsense he brought with them all the way back to the carpark and beyond.

\--

Every night, without invitation, Louis falls asleep on the sofa. He gets up when Niall does, ready to face the day. He hasn’t done mentioned moving since the zoo, but Niall hasn’t asked him to. It's easier, honestly, so Louis is here to take the kid and he's not driving clear across the city twice a day.

That's what Niall tells himself. It's just more economical this way. He’d never say so, but he’s grateful for the company, for Louis’ help with the kid, for filling the house. He hadn’t noticed how empty it had become with just Niall in it, with too many bedrooms for just him, too many chairs in the kitchen, too much space on the sofas.

He’s gotta let things like that roll of his back, like they used to. It’s easier that way. He’ll figure it out later, how he feels about it, what he should do about it. In the meantime, Louis’ always there, doing the bulk of the work when he’s not off at his new job.

Louis gets a spot in their bed because his arse is sticking up in the air when Niall gets home on a Wednesday. Niall resists the urge to slap it, just because it’s there, practically begging for it. Instead he says, “All right, there?”

“My back,” Louis says, slowly working his way up to straight, one arm clutching at the sofa for dear life.

Niall presses a hand into the base of his back, kneading until Louis relaxes. “Is it the sofa?”

“Yeah, god, if there was ever a reminder I’m not eighteen anymore, it’s five nights on a sofa.” He hisses in when Niall gets a hand in a knot, but then melts shortly after. It’s second nature, Niall with his hands on him, Niall wanting to make him feel better, Niall guilty that he feels bad at all.

Niall removes his hands, thinks _I should clear this with Dr. Nichols first,_ and says, “Sleep in mine.”

Louis looks at him sharply and, uncharacteristically, says nothing.

Niall shrugs at him. It’s going to roll off his back. “It’s big enough for the two of us.”

Louis stands at the edge of the bed, once cleaned and pajama’d, looking at it dubiously. “You haven’t shagged anyone else in this bed, have you?”

“Louis.”

“I’m just saying, a guy likes to be prepared,” Louis says, his voice squeaking in that way it does when he’s absolutely lying about how innocent he’s trying to be. “For what’s he’s going to find.”

“You were always the slob, not me.” He knows it’s a non-answer, but that’s not something he owes Louis. That’s not something he’s willing to admit.

Louis knows he’s the first, the recipient of Niall’s truly awkward sexual discoveries, but Niall doesn’t want him to know he’s the last. That anytime someone at work had said there were other fish in the sea, Niall had almost told them he doesn’t like to go fishing. That Emma had mentioned exactly once about setting him up before Niall shut her down so hard she never even breathed in that direction again.

And he’s certainly never going to mention the four hours of panic when he’d downloaded a dating app on his phone. So.

He settles into bed, on his side as he always does, in this big old bed he hasn’t learned to sleep in the middle of quite yet, even after all this time. He ignores Louis’ wiggling and snuffling, closes his eyes and pretends to drop off early. Pretends it doesn’t feel right to have someone equaling his weight on the other end of the bed.

\--

Something smells like fire the second Niall gets in and it quickens his steps into the kitchen.

Louis scrapes at a pan, probably scratching up the Teflon. Of course he’s managed to stick something on a non-stick pan.

Niall rolls his eyes and presses a kiss to the side of Milo’s head, getting a couple of babbles and a shake of Peppa Pig for his trouble. “What’s going on here?”

“You’re in luck, lad, we’re having pancakes for dinner.”

Niall squints at him. “You can’t make pancakes.”

Louis makes this affronted noise, and Milo repeats it with his own special sort of squeal. “Excuse you very much, Niall, but yes, I can.”

“The last time you made them, they looked like a diseased lung. I’ll show you.” Niall tosses his briefcase onto the table and unearths his phone from somewhere, opening Instagram for the first time in forever. He starts clicking around until he remembers, very suddenly, that Louis is still all over his profile.

He scrolls quickly down to the last pancake disaster to show Louis he’s always right in all things everywhere every time, then switches off his phone.

Niall reckons he’s not quite learned how to be an ex yet. You’re meant to delete all his pics, block his number, listen to Little Mix for three weeks, and go shag someone else. So far he’s one for four, but that’s just because Little Mix is on his commute playlist.

Instead Niall’s half-moved him in, invited him into his bed, and cleared out a bit in the closet so he wasn’t living out of a case. Niall’s absolutely mad is what he is, but he doesn’t let himself linger on it too long. It’s pancakes for dinner. And, strangely, they aren’t burnt.

Milo likes pancakes, his pudgy fist clutching at his little plastic fork and shaking it happily. He also likes feeding himself.

“D’you wanna give us the fork back?” Niall asks gently, trying to recover it to no success.

Milo looks at him like he’s mental and whines. That look he gets from Louis, no doubt about it.

“D’you want some more? If you want some more, you gotta give me the fork back.” Niall loves reasoning with someone who still shits his pants.

He debates with Milo another few minutes, until Milo starts to get fussy, until Louis takes pity on him and says, “Get another fork.”

“What?”

“See if he’ll trade. Hang on.” Louis pulls another fork from the drawer, stabbing a bit of pancake and presenting it to him.

Milo waves the other fork until it drops and takes the second fork from Louis’ hand to pop it in his mouth.

“That’s brilliant,” Niall says.

“Yes, I am.”

“Shut up,” Niall says, nudging at him hard enough he stumbles.

It’s a quiet, perfect night, a lad’s night, the three of them snugged up on the sofa watching footie after dinner. Milo bashes Peppa Pig against Niall’s leg less than rhythmically, and Niall lets that go on until he thinks Milo’s gonna put a bruise there. Louis stretches out on his side of the sofa, arms going wide and sleepy until a hand falls over the cushion behind Niall’s head.

Niall rolls his eyes, but lets Louis absentmindedly play at the hair on the nape of his neck anyway. He doesn’t move from the sofa for hours and hours, doesn’t breathe in the direction of the bag he’ll have to pack for Milo’s little vacation tomorrow.

It’ll be quiet then, just like it’s quiet right now, just what Niall’s wanted for weeks, a reprieve. He wonders why he doesn’t look forward to it.

\--

Niall wakes with his hand brushing against something soft and warm, that firms when he presses his fingers against it. There’s a hum, a hand clutching at his own, a pressure pushing back against Niall’s hips, lighting him up.

Niall pushes his hips forward for the slightest relief, his lips moving to place a kiss on Louis’ shoulder. He fucking loves a morning shag, thinks it’s very much the best way to wake up.

Until Louis says, “Mm, good morning to both of you.” And he remembers.

Niall’s eyes shoot open, no trace of sleep damning him further. He shifts away quickly, his face heating up like it’s going to melt right off with the embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“I’m not,” Louis says, his voice low and sleep rough and not at all helping the situation.

“I’ll get a quick shower.”

Louis turns over to look at him, one of his eyes half glued shut with sleep, but still somehow managing to look altogether hopeful, mischievous, and horny. “Do you -- want me to do something about it?”

Niall laughs at him just so his face doesn’t betray how much he wants that. He can’t want that. He can’t do that again. “Nelson and Celia -- I’ve got to go get Milo ready.”

“That can’t wait two minutes?”

Niall quirks an eyebrow. “Two minutes. That’s generous.”

“Is that a challenge?” Louis’ eyes are fully open now, looking at Niall just the way Niall always wants him to. His hand rests on the duvet next to Niall, not quite touching him, like he’s waiting for permission.

Niall can’t stop himself from grinning, from falling into banter like it’s second nature. “Yeah.”

Louis grins at him, victorious.

“Yeah,” Niall repeats, a whisper, the moment Louis gets a hand on him. He makes a cursory glance at the time, just in case.

Louis works him over like a man possessed, the length of his body pressed against Niall’s, his breath huffing into Niall’s ear. “Has it -- been a while?”

Niall inhales sharply. “Are you really asking me if I’ve shagged anyone else since you? Again?”

“Yeah. And I’ve got your dick in my hand, so you better tell me what I want to hear.”

“It’s been a while,” Niall breathes. He wants to crack a joke about it, ask Louis when he’s honestly had the time to pull with the baby and all. But what he says instead is far more truthful than he intends. “Ah, fuck, it’s only been you.”

There goes that secret. It drives Louis crazy, so he reckons maybe it’s worth it.

In the end, it takes five. Niall laughs at him, but its effectiveness is ruined by how satisfied he feels, the way warmth still flows through him. “Five minutes,” Niall says anyway.

“I’m rusty,” Louis says, which reminds Niall for the first time this morning of reality. It leaves him suddenly cold.

They shouldn’t have done that, they really shouldn’t have, and Niall’s about to say something when Louis smears his hand all down Niall’s chest.

“That’s fucking nice,” Niall says with a glower and rolls out of bed, figuring refusing to reciprocate is punishment enough.

Time moves in fast forward, like that bit of Home Alone where they’re all scrambling because they’re late to the airport. They shower and dress and pack and Louis tells Celia about the forks and Nelson chats at Niall about Barça and then they’re gone with Milo in tow.

The world shudders nearly to a stop as they hit play again, quiet in the aftermath, the two of them standing in the doorway, a bit lost for what to do now that the one thing that connects them has left.

Niall doesn’t want him to stay, doesn’t want him to go. Doesn’t want Louis to touch him, wants to get lost inside him. He pulls at his hair, willing Louis to do something first, but he doesn’t hold his breath.

Then Louis surprises him. “D’you want -- like, we could get lunch or something. With the boys next door.”

Niall blinks. “Who?”

“Harry and Liam. Been talking to them a bit, they’re good lads.”

Ah, Niall had somehow forgotten about them. They’re nice enough, lads, from what it seems, but he’s got something like thirty unanswered texts on his phone even now, at least four of them from his therapist. He’s never felt less sociable in his life. “No, I -- it’s not right. It’s too soon.”

“Too soon?” Louis laughs. “To hang out with our neighbors?”

“It feels. God, you’re going to think this is so stupid.” He stops himself and runs a hand over his face. When he says it out loud, it doesn’t quite make sense. He knows he’s not making sense, but that doesn’t stop how he feels. Doesn’t make it feel any less real. “It feels like I’m replacing them.”

Louis gathers him into a hug, pressing at Niall’s back firmly. “You’re allowed to have friends, like. Niall, there’s no replacing them, not with anybody in this entire world. It hurts, love, so fucking bad, I know it does.” His voice trails off, gone all soft at the end there, and for the first time in quite some time, Niall hears the level of hurt Louis holds onto, the same as Niall. But then he slaps at Niall’s back and adds, “But it doesn’t give you an excuse to be a miserable, lonely bastard for the rest of your life.”

Niall snorts into his shoulder. “Jesus, Louis.”

“Okay, okay,” Louis says with a quiet laugh. “We don’t have to. We can just chill here.”

“I’d like that.” He really thinks he would.

“FIFA tourney?”

“If you’re in the mood to lose.”

Louis near sits on top of him on the sofa, like it’s some sort of strategy, like they’re allowed to do this now that they’ve broken the shag barrier between them. Niall lets it happen because it feels better not to worry. He likes the press of Louis against him, practically misses it, and deciding not to tell him off clears the burning sensation up his throat.

Familiarity is what he craves, he realizes, something solid and time worn to hold onto now that his life’s become something wholly unrecognizable in the last five weeks, in the last year really.

He doesn’t recognize his life any easier than recognizing his face, and dwelling on what once was hurts. It fucking hurts, but Louis pressed against him doesn’t hurt. Louis losing two games in a row and pitching a fit doesn’t hurt. The thought of kissing that pout off Louis’ face doesn’t hurt.

If it were months ago, the first call he’d make would be to Emma, to get her to talk him out of relapsing, to remind him of all the reasons he shouldn’t let his heart get broken. But she’s not here, Roman’s not here. And the only one he wants to see right now is Louis.

He’d quite like to kiss Louis. So he does.

Louis tosses the controller on the floor and grabs him, hands firmly sliding around Niall’s chin and the back of his neck. Like maybe he was waiting on it.

It sets a dangerous precedent.

\--

Niall tips up the volume on the monitor as far as it can go, scooting it to the edge of the bedside table, just in case.

Louis huffs a sigh in his ear. “Stop fiddling with that thing while I’m fingering you, please.”

“Sorry. It’s good, sorry.” Niall gives a groan and an encouraging nod, just to shore up the point.

“Don’t condescend,” Louis says, crooking his fingers and working a genuine groan out of Niall. “You’re going to jinx it, he’s sleeping.”

Niall nods and reaches out for Louis, pulling him close to kiss him. It’s a slow and lazy Tuesday night shag, one they shouldn’t even feel up for, not after working all day.

They hadn’t even discussed it, it had just sort of happened. They’re not discussing anything lately, Niall reckons because it’s easier, because it doesn’t hurt yet. They didn’t discuss the snogs they’d had before Niall made dinner, outside Milo’s room after they put him down. They don’t discuss how Louis’ putting on a condom for the first time in years.

The closest they get to even thinking about it is Louis breathing against his neck, “Missed this. Missed you.”

“Yeah. Missed you,” Niall admits.

Then Milo whines through the radio and they freeze.

“Fuck,” Louis snaps.

Niall snorts and shushes him. They wait, panting in each others’ faces, to see if he starts crying. Louis’ hips tip forward experimentally, a slow drag inside him that catches Niall’s breath in his chest.

“Stop,” Niall says, squeezing at Louis’ hips, but he hates himself for it. Sure enough, Milo starts warbling again, this time louder, longer. He’s working himself into a strop. Shit.

Louis groans. “You fucking jinxed it.”

“Shut up.”

Milo begins to howl, loud enough the windows might start shaking. Niall wonders when they’re meant to stop catering to that, when the parenting books say they should just let him tire himself out or something so he doesn’t learn that screaming gets him just what he wants.

But there’s also that part of Niall that feels utterly guilty. That thinks maybe something’s terribly horribly wrong and they should always go to him, just in case.

“Are you going?” Louis asks.

Niall squints at him in disbelief. “You’re literally balls deep, Louis,” he says blandly.

“So?”

“So no, I’m not going.”

Louis looks down. “I’m harder than you.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Louis stares him right in the eyes, so intently that Niall can practically see the wheels turning as he’s weighing out the chances that if he just rolls over and plays dead or something that Niall would go. Niall’s not going to risk upsetting the kid further just by showing his face. It’s Louis he wants, they both know it.

“Shit,” Louis decides, pulling out quick enough Niall gasps, and nearly falls over trying to get a pair of boxers, not even bothering to take the condom off, as though Niall were really going to let him come back and immediately enter him again.

Milo quiets in an instant, probably the second he realizes Louis’ in the room. If it were Niall, he’d probably scream for another ten minutes just for the thrill of it.

“Hey, lad,” he can hear Louis whisper. “You have incredibly bad timing. We’re going to have to work on that.”

Niall chuckles and rolls over, eyes glued to the monitor even though there’s nothing to see. There’s just really something about focusing all his attention on it, on them, and the fondness he feels when Louis singsongs, “Say hi to Nialler.”

Milo doesn’t say hi, but he’ll get there one day.

“Hiiiii, Nialler,” Louis says sweetly. Then ruins it by saying, just as sweetly, “He better not be wanking over there.”

Niall rolls his eyes and bites down on a smart remark he knows Louis wouldn’t be able to hear anyway. Talking about wanking to a kid, honestly. Christ, Louis’ lucky it’s not a two-way radio.

\--

There’s a shift in Niall, nearly imperceptible, impossible to track its growth. Maybe it’s not there one day, and then there the next, but Niall finds himself staring desperately at his computer’s clock. He wills the hours to tick faster so he can get home.

In the early days after uni, still high on telling everyone he was going home to his _husband_ , he’d felt the same. He’d clock his hours and run immediately home to cook the two of them dinner, make out until Corrie’s over, then drag themselves to bed to read or shag or whatever until they fell asleep hours and hours earlier than they ever did in uni.

Then Louis’d got that job in the bar, and Niall had found himself considerably less excited about going home to an empty flat, then to an empty house. He’d stay later, because it really wasn’t much of a difference to Louis, he figured. He learned he was wrong.

Niall learned, in the three weeks he was gone, that the whole world doesn’t fall apart if he doesn’t work twelve hours a day. That if he just puts in the same amount of time as everyone else, he can probably start to curb people’s expectations.

The very minute his computer reads 5.30 pm, he saves everything he’s working on and locks it. He hardly unpacks his briefcase anymore, just so he can pick it up and stride purposefully to the lift.

Andy slides in front of him, and Niall fights the urge to keep his momentum and dodge around him, maybe doing a dramatic slide into the lift just before the doors close, as though his moving through the gap in the closing doors wouldn’t actually make the doors stutter back open again.

Niall stops anyway and Andy asks just what Niall thinks he will, “Have you got the project plan for Kinsey?”

“I’ll finish it tomorrow.”

“I really need it tonight.”

It’s not an emergency. Niall knows it’s not an emergency. If it were due quickly, Andy would have given him the notes for Kinsey days ago and not hours ago. Someone else’s emergency can’t constitute Niall’s.

He knows they’ll play on his guilt as long as they can so he’ll exhaust himself doing the work tonight, only for Andy to go out for drinks, stroll in hungover half an hour late the next morning, and tell Niall, _ah sorry, mate, forgot to look at it._

Niall grips his briefcase that much harder, swallows, and says, “Are they going to read it tonight?”

Andy frowns. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve got to get home. If they’re not going to read it tonight, I’d like to have it for them tomorrow.” He looks at Andy sternly and says, “I’ve -- I’ve got a kid now. I’ve got to get home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He moves on without looking back, the people pleaser within him going absolutely mad. He spends his whole commute home inventing all sorts of ways he can get in trouble for refusing to stay there all night for no reason at all. He doesn’t think Andy’d tell, mostly because he might end up in more trouble than Niall does if the truth comes out.

He swallows around the burning sensation in his throat, listens to music, and tries to put it all out of his mind. Because it’s worth it for Louis’ smile when Niall comes home on time, for the way Milo makes grabby hands at him when he goes to pick him up.

\--

Niall gets his ass handed to him over Kinsey, of course he does, arrogant enough to assume that his own years-long behavior could change in a day to no consequence. He’s fuming through the day, works later than he should, and fumes all the way home.

Celia’s long gone, and Niall hates it when he can’t be home to say goodbye to her. He tries to do more than just a kiss and a thanks, because she’s not just a sitter to Niall, she’s the single most calming influence in his life in those few hours he gets to steal from her. The glow of family hangs on her, faint but all-encompassing, and Niall knows he can’t get away with using her for more than she uses him for much longer.

Milo picks up on his raging bad mood the second he sees Niall, his face scrunching in disgust as soon as Niall tries to pick him up, hollering enough that Niall just sets him back down in the playpen.

He looks around -- Louis’ nowhere to be seen. He tries to shush Milo, to do up an amusing dance with Peppa Pig, and, in a last-ditch effort, check his nappy. But no, he’s just pissed at Niall.

“Louis!” he hollers, knowing that if his voice isn’t carrying through the house, it’s at least going through the monitor.

Louis doesn’t come running like Niall expects him to. He doesn’t even know where Louis bloody is and the thought that he’s just left the kid here on his own burns up Niall’s throat. Louis isn’t coming, he’s got to just figure this out on his own. He’d done it for weeks without Louis, he can do it now.

“Hey, petal, shh,” Niall says, trying to conjure up what Louis does to no avail -- Louis just seems to exist and Milo’s happy about it. Celia rocks him and pets at his hair and sings to him, so Niall goes that route.

He sings his old man music to Milo until Milo stills, headbutting Niall’s shoulder oddly and staying there until Louis finally saunters his way back into the living room.

“Where were you, I needed you,” Niall huffs at him, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, lest he set Milo off all over again.

“Looks like you’re doing fine,” Louis says, looking him up and down, and ending unimpressed.

“We are now. But we weren’t five minutes ago.”

Louis crosses his arms in front of himself defensively, closing himself off to whatever else Niall’s got to say. It's so fucking familiar Niall feels his irritation solidifying fast and hard, like it'll never fade away.

“You just left him alone. What if something happened? Do you just leave him alone when I'm not here?”

“He was fine. I had the monitor.”

Niall huffs. “So you could hear me.”

“Sometimes parents need to take a shit, Niall.” Louis flaps an impatient hand. “Shit happens.”

“That couldn't wait till I got home?”

“How in the bloody hell would I ever know when that is?” Louis says, and Niall feels himself rising to the challenge, a recap of his arse kicking at work ready to go on his tongue. It melts, most of it melts off when Louis gets a hand to the back of his neck and squeezes. His voice goes soft, but burns with confidence. “You don’t have to call for me when it gets a bit rough, like. You’ve got it.”

Niall doesn’t know what part of him will win in a battle -- his irritation at Louis for doing something he doesn’t like or his irritation at himself for assuming he can’t do anything. So he lets them both go. It’s a novel idea, that he’s good enough for Milo, but Niall entertains it. He looks down at Milo uncertainly. “I’ve got it.”

Louis tugs at Milo’s onesie and says, “What d’you think, lad, d’you think you can behave for Nialler?”

“Duh, duh,” Milo answers. He actually answers. It’s the closest thing he’s given to a proper sound beyond shrieking and squealing. Niall blinks at him, dumbfounded.

Louis, on the other hand, moves his hand to grasp at Niall’s arm that isn’t cradling a child, his fingers gripping painfully into Niall’s bicep. He looks completely shaken until his face breaks into a huge grin. “Oh my god, did you hear that? Did you hear him say dad? His first word’s dad.”

Niall looks between them. That’d be -- honestly, that’d be fucking incredible, if it didn’t hurt so much that that’s what Milo’s latched onto and they can’t even give him his dad. “I think that was just a noise.”

“No, he was saying dad.” Louis tickles Milo and he squeals. “Look at you, clever boy, what an excellent choice.”

The next few hours are full of them kneeling before Milo and trying to get him to say it again, everything else forgotten. Niall says _dad_ often enough prompting Milo that it stops feeling like a real word.

Milo doesn’t indulge them, not even once, but Louis still acts like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen to him. It sort of is, Niall reckons. Any time Milo learns something new, it feels like nothing short of a miracle. It’s the closest Niall’s ever gotten to understanding what it means to be blessed. He wants to roll his eyes for letting himself think sappy things like that, but it’s real. Nothing else seems to matter compared to that, not his shitty day, not picking a fight with Louis just to exercise some of the frustration built up inside him.

“Celia’s made you dinner,” Louis tells him at the rumble of his stomach.

“She’s a saint.” Niall’s phone chimes with a message as he shuffles off toward the kitchen. Louis catches him at the waist first, leaning in to press a kiss to the side of his mouth.

Niall grins after him, holding onto that feeling as best he can until he checks his email once the microwave’s going. Sitting in his inbox is a reminder that crashes everything around him.

\--

Louis must know, he’s been throwing Niall these stressed looks all morning, but he isn’t dressed in anything other than the joggers he usually wears on a Wednesday.

They’d passed a muted night together, strained because of what’s ahead of them.

They’re in a honeymoon period is all, they have been before and they’ll ease out of it again. When Niall thinks of it -- and he really doesn’t want to think of it -- he still sees so much of the potential that Louis has to absolutely destroy him is still there. Louis’ll remember those things when he’s not caught up by grief, when he’s not coddling Niall for being a shit parent.

Eventually Louis’ going to have to do more than work two days a week, eventually he’s going to have to stop this unpaid half-nanny gig Niall’s roped him into. Then Niall won’t need him anymore. He’ll hire a proper nanny and Louis will move out and things won’t go back to the way they were, but they will go back to the way they need to be.

Niall lets Harry in when he rings and Milo goes straight for the sunglasses perched in Harry’s hair once he collects him from Niall’s arms.

“You would look super cool in those,” Harry agrees, plucking the glasses back with absolutely no fuss and placing them into Milo’s hair. Another bloody natural.

“Hey, Harry,” Louis says, blinking at him when they make it back to the kitchen.

Harry nods at him. “Morning.”

“Harry’s here,” Louis tells him, with a point, as though Niall can neither see or hear him without instruction.

“I called him to watch Milo,” Niall says, and adds at Louis’ blank look, “because we have that appointment today.”

“What appointment?”

Niall’s surprised -- he didn’t know? “With the solicitors. It’s been six weeks.”

The kitchen grows immediately cold, so cold Niall’s convinced he might be able to see his breath if he exhaled.

“With the -- are you fucking serious right now?” Louis says, his voice edging louder like he’s on the cusp of yelling.

“I’m gonna,” Harry says, awkwardly loud, before scooting out the back door with the kid.

Louis waits until just the moment the door closes behind Harry, then he does yell, “You’re going -- after what we’ve -- are you fucking serious?”

Niall stares at him incredulously. “What’s changed?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Louis thunders. “What does then matter, when we have what’s happening now?”

“Because it was fine once before and then it all went to shit. That’s just going to happen, again and again. This isn’t _real_.”

Louis looks like he’s been slapped, his voice going quiet. It doesn’t make him sound any less angry. “Fuck you it’s not real.”

“We fought all the time,” Niall says. It’s only a matter of time, last night halfway to proving his point, that they’ll snip at each other the second everything isn’t all sunshine and roses.

“Yeah, that's, like, our thing! It's banter.”

“Not always.” Niall presses the heels of his palms against his eyes and the wound opens so quickly, he’d hardly believed the last time they’d truly torn it open was close to a year ago.

They fight deftly, with all the knowledge of two people who have known each other for the better part of a decade, all their deep buried resentments floating easily to the top so they can hurt each other the most efficient way they know how.

The argument burns up Niall’s throat, has Niall lashing out in self-defense, “Thank god we didn’t get a kid.”

“Fuck you, Niall,” Louis spits. “You didn’t fucking want kids. That was on you.”

Niall nearly laughs at the thought. He’d always thought adoption was the best course for them. He -- he definitely thought that. “I was there at every meeting. I was doing all the research. I was making it happen. Because you sure as shit weren’t.”

“Are you going to tell me you didn’t breathe out a sigh of relief every time I missed an appointment?”

“No,” Niall says, but it still strikes a chord in his chest, has him reeling. He’s knocked off his game, like Louis’ swift kick at the truth of it has him too disoriented to swing back.

“You told me, once, you said, _you know what’s so great about your siblings, Lou? You get to give them back at the end of the day_ ,” Louis sneers, like he’s disgusted at him.

“I never -- ” Niall stutters.

“Yes, you fucking did.”

Niall knows he has, he’s thought it before, he’s thought it a hundred times since getting Milo, on those days where it got to be too much, on those days he was on his own and Louis wasn’t there, but. He can’t remember thinking it once when Louis was going to be at his side.

Louis narrows his eyes at him, but it’s not in disgust anymore. It’s like he’s trying to see Niall clearer. “I never got why you didn’t want it. Because you didn’t think you were good enough for it?”

Niall does know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. Of course he worries about that, everyone bloody worries about that. And he knows it’s only been confirmed with Milo, how absolutely crap he is at it.

“You’re so busy worrying whether you’re going to be a good dad, Niall, but you _already are one_.”

That’s the difference, the incredible difference. If they’d adopted on their own, the kid would be their own, there would be absolutely no doubt, no guilt building up inside Niall that he’s just a poor substitute for the real thing. If they’d adopted a kid, that’d be _their kid_ , they’d be the kid’s parents, and that’d be the end of it.

But Milo had parents, he had the best fucking parents in the world, not some sad, half-destroyed facsimile of parents, divorcing before the kid even gets to know them.

“This is not our kid!” Niall shouts, cleaving himself in two to finally say the things that kept him up all night, that he’s been ignoring for weeks and weeks. “We aren’t getting the life we always wanted. We’re living in some sort of -- delusion. A honeymoon phase, like maybe we’re gonna pull through this. But it’s shitty to think having a kid is going to fix a broken marriage. It’s shitty to make Milo what’s supposed to fill the cracks. It’s not fair to him.”

Niall wins, he knows it as soon as he’s done. He knows it by the tears on Louis’ face, the twist of his lips as he tries to keep his jaw from shaking.

He wins and it feels dirty, the opposite of a victory. He looks away from Louis and grabs his briefcase off the table. “We’re going to be late.”

“God fucking forbid.” Louis sweeps past him out of the house, clearly intending to show exactly how much he thinks of this meeting by attending barefoot, in those fucking joggers.

\--

He’s got a raging case of the man flu the next time he sees Louis, his body absolutely wrecked and defenseless. He knows he shouldn’t answer the pounding at the door at 2 am, but he doesn’t know it’s Louis. It’s the thought that the worst could have happened that gets him shuffling toward the door.

Only, he figures, most of the worst has already happened.

Louis falls into the house, giggling and shushing Niall like he’s the one making a scene. He feels like hollering at Louis for making such a noise, but the truth of it is Milo’s not even here.

“Heyyyyyy, oh shit -- ” Louis cuts off and then stage whispers, not much quieter than the voice he had been using, “is he sleeping?”

“He’s with his grandparents. Are you drunk?”

“Maybe just a little bit,” he says slyly, like it’s a joke.

Anger flares in Niall, licking up the length of his body at the very thought. “Did you _drive_?”

“Liam drove. Wow. You’re so mad. Turn that frown upside down.” His fingers go to Niall’s face, pressing at the sides of his mouth before Niall ducks away.

“Don’t -- I can’t believe you’re drunk. After everything -- you _know_ how I feel about that.” He presses at the bridge of his nose, the feeling of sinus pressure compounding with the absolute frustration to make his head feel like it’s going to explode. “Why are you here?”

“Shouldn’t I be?” Louis leans against the wall, his head knocking at the picture next to him, because he’s so bloody careless. He closes his eyes and looks pained. “I forgot. We’re getting divorced since you don’t love me anymore.”

Niall freezes, frowning at him. He’s never once told Louis he doesn’t love him anymore There’s always love, affection, he’s all centered his world around Louis because there’s not a world where he couldn’t love him.

“I still love you. Louis, we’re not getting divorced because I don’t love you anymore.”

He flaps an impatient hand, his face scrunching like Milo does when they try to get him to eat something he doesn’t want. Niall should stop thinking of him as a child. “Why are we getting divorced, then?” Louis asks. “Because of the I love you, but?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Louis, I love you, but you’re exhausting. I love you, but you have to get a good job. I love you, but take this seriously. I love you, but you make me miserable.”

Niall closes his eyes, breathes carefully, swallows against the burning in his throat. That Louis thinks this is true of him, that he comes across like such a fucking arsehole -- this isn’t Niall.

He’s meant to laugh it off, he’s meant to not care. What’s a job when they have each other? He knows it seems petty, but they’re adults now. They’ve got a house and about seven hundred responsibilities and a kid -- a kid. He needed Louis to show up to everything else because he needed Louis to show up for their kid. He needed to see he wouldn’t be on his own, and Louis never proved that. It broke Niall’s fucking heart.

Niall’s eyes open when he feels the tips of Louis’ fingers against his cheeks. “I know I’m a fuck up,” Louis says, his eyes shining. “But I thought we were stronger than that. Forever, forever, forever.” He leans in, a kiss on his lips because Niall’s set that dangerous precedence, but Niall pushes him away gently. They can’t do this anymore.

“Louis, stop,” Niall says, his voice without any bite. He just sounds sad, he thinks. Finished.

“I wasn’t done with us yet.”

“It was inevitable,” Niall says, shaking his head. “That’s where we were going. It’s better to just cut it off now, before it got so bad we couldn’t even look at each other.”

“You gave up on me,” Louis insists. “You gave up on us.”

Niall snaps in an instant because Louis always knows how to find the switch, how to flip it. He won’t take the fall for this, he never has. “Because it’s all me, isn’t it. If I’m not putting in the effort, no one is.”

“I was putting effort -- we were having a laugh! It was good.”

“There’s more to a relationship, there’s more to a _life_ than just a good laugh and a good fuck.” Niall exhales and inhales desperately like he’s just taken a sucker punch to the stomach. He never wanted this part, he just wanted it to be over.

Louis stares at him, wide-eyed and suddenly sober looking. His voice is low when he finds it. “Twist the fucking knife, Niall.”

Niall takes a step back, then another when it doesn’t feel like enough. He turns so he doesn’t have to see Louis, but pretends it’s just to run a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t have come over here. Not if all you were going to do is pick a fight.”

“Come over here. Niall, I _live_ here, this is our home.”

“I’m not doing this with you when you’re drunk.”

“You won’t do this with me when I’m sober either.”

“Go to sleep, Louis.”

“In our bed?” he spits, watching Niall closely like he might dare, until he presses past Niall toward the sofa. He curls in on himself, fully dressed, and pretends to sleep by the time Niall can be bothered to move.

He’s gone by the morning. Everything else of his is gone before Niall gets home.

\--

Maura and Bobby arrive the day after Louis moves all his shit out, so they can fawn over the kid for a week while Niall tours daycares and interviews nannies, uncertain about any of the discourse to know which option’s right for Milo.

At this rate, it sort of feels like he’ll be a weekend parent, only spending any time with him on his days off, if he gets days off, and that’s not exactly fair. He remembers the solicitors listing this as a reason he was unfit for being Mil’s guardian, and he’s starting to think maybe they had a point there.

It’s odd having his parents in the same house. They offer to both sleep in his bed, so he can have the sofa. He refuses. He could never let that happen again. He doesn’t expect them to relapse like Niall did -- they’re stronger than that, they understand their boundaries. But just the thought of forcing them together has him sick.

Emma and Roman’s house sells that week too, because Niall isn’t hurt enough.

Niall spends his days working, his nights sorting and packing through their whole lives with Nelson, deciding what’s worth donating, what’s worth keeping, what’s worth chucking. He goes home and sleeps for four hours and gets up and kisses his mum good morning and does it all over again.

He keeps himself busy so he doesn't call Louis. Not that he knows what he'd say to him -- he'd tell him to fuck off or come home or just finish him once and for all.

No one says a thing, instead treats him with gentle hands like he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Maybe he is, but he won’t succumb. There’s something too selfish about that, about making himself everyone else’s problem.

He figures Nelson will never call him on it, he figures he’s in the clear, until Celia’s there one night too. She clocks it the second she sees him, he’s always so transparent.

“Where’s Louis?” Celia asks him as soon as he gathers her in a hug.

He starts to sway them to the gentle music she has playing in the kitchen, like maybe if he waits long enough he won’t have to answer, he won’t have to admit how much he feels like he’s fucked it all up, even if he knows it isn’t his fault.

Last night he’d dreamt of their wedding, the two of them exchanging their vows, only instead of forever, forever, forever, Niall had said a list of _I love you, but_ until Roman hauled him out of the room and Emma curled around Louis protectively.

“Dunno.”

She slaps at his back and pulls away, rattling off something disappointed sounding in Spanish. He’s got enough of his grade school Spanish to know she thinks he’s an idiot, and she’s right. But he’s not about to admit it.

“I don’t need to be taken care of.” It’s a lie, he knows it as soon as he says it, but he doesn’t want to get caught being a problem for anyone else. Not after he’s made himself Louis’ problem for weeks, not after anything they’ve all been through.

_I wasn’t done with us yet_.

“We all do,” she says. “Without Nelson.” She cuts off and presses a hand to her chest. He watches her gather strength on her own. “This thing we feel, this grief. It is the ugliest part of living. No language I know covers what we are. The vocabulary for grief and loss doesn’t give us a new identity. My children have passed.”

Niall’s heart finds a new way to shatter for her. Shame burns its way up his throat at how selfish he feels, comparing his pain to hers. She’s more generous than he deserves.

“The only thing we have for it is each other. This here,” she says, grabbing both of his hands into her own, “this is our balm. We share the weight when we carry it together.”

“Together,” Niall says quietly.

She squeezes his hands. “You carry my weight. I carry yours. But it is too heavy for two.”

She’s so right it hurts to look at her. Grief is a weight, somehow built up by absences. The absence of Emma or Roman or Louis or compassion or patience or competence. He mourns what he’s lost, what’s left him, and it’s so fucking heavy.

He’s got Louis. He’s got a phone full of people waiting for him to answer. He’s got his therapist. He’s got his parents. He’s got his odd neighbors. He’s got Milo.

And he’s got no excuse, really, to not share the weight.

He goes to Dr. Nichols the next day, for the first time in nine weeks. She listens patiently when he tells her all the fucking dumb shit he’s done without anyone to stop him and she doesn’t cuff him around the head like she should. Probably some sort of medical law preventing it, but he wonders if he doesn’t just deserve a good smack.

He tells her about the weight, and she agrees, to an extent. Those absences have left gaping holes in him, but he’s filled them with shit. At her gentle instruction, he empties himself of the bad, pours it all out on the floor in front of him, so he can fill himself up with the good. He’s just not sure what the good is.

She asks him to visualize it, to sift through the rubbish to pluck up the things worth saving, worth fixing with a little care and effort. He doesn’t see Milo in the rubbish, so he knows he’s not let him go. He wants him, he wants to be a dad. He just doesn’t know if Milo deserves someone like him.

He asks her if he’s allowed to pick up Louis. She hands him a cream-colored business card.

At home, he tosses his keys and the business card onto the counter, stares into the fridge, at the lone bottle of beer Bobby’s not drank yet, and closes the door. He doesn’t know what he wants.

He slips quietly past Bobby snoozing on the sofa to Milo’s room, crawls onto the air mattress in front of his crib, like he’s really putting the guard in guardian. Milo stirs, blinking over at Niall, but for once he doesn’t start screaming. Niall wiggles a hand through the bars to get at Milo’s, looking for that balm.

“Am I gonna be your dad?” Niall asks him, Louis’ voice echoing back _you already are one_. Milo doesn’t give him the courtesy of answering, outside of a huff and a press of his fingers against Niall’s. Part of the weight eases off Niall’s shoulders, at least for a little while.

\--

Niall works late every day like he fucking deserves it. He’d broken down crying once his parents had left, leaving the whole house empty. With others around, it was easy to distract himself from how empty he felt from dumping everything within him on the floor and how he couldn’t think of anything good to fill in its place.

The house is empty, Niall is empty, but the thing that made it worse is Milo looked empty. He’d glance around like maybe he was expecting Louis to come around a corner and sweep him up out of his chair. Maybe Niall wanted that too.

He’s so exhausted, so emotionally drained from his parents buzzing and packing the house and convincing himself he’s sunk too far deep into life with the kid that he’ll never go back. He hasn’t even managed to shake his cold yet.

He lacks the strength of a single parent. He’s so fucking selfish, he’s sick with it. All he wants is Louis to tell him he’s being an idiot, to gather him up and make him feel like he can do anything with Louis beside him.

He’s got the emotional consistency of a yoyo, up and down at any given moment, wanting someone to share the weight, wanting to be left completely alone. He can’t make sense of himself, of what Celia’s told him, of what his therapist says.

He walks into the backyard and pulls at his hair, just so he can get out of the empty, empty house. “I don’t fucking know,” he tells his backyard mostly because he knows it won’t answer anything back.

“Howdy, neighbor,” Harry says from beside him, scaring Niall so much he jumps.

Niall watches him blink owlishly, and it’s not Harry’s fault he’s a mess and a half. “Hey.”

Harry leans his bare arms against the fence, surveying Niall too seriously for someone who is almost certainly naked and gardening. “You doing okay?”

Niall breathes and remembers the reason he’s not supposed to let it all roll off his back. When he hurts, he’s allowed to say so. “No.”

“Can I help you?”

“I don’t know.”

Harry purses his lips and says, “Can I try?”

He could share the weight. Niall reckons Louis’ right, just this once. He’s allowed to have other mates. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says, and disappears back into his house.

Niall laughs. He actually laughs, sinking down onto the grass to lie down because he can’t stand the idea of being on his feet. He tries not to think anything of it, Harry disappearing off the second he’s said yes.

He watches the clouds above him, thinks it’s properly spring now, and the world shouldn’t look so beautiful, not if it’s only to spite Niall.

Niall closes his eyes and says, “Christ, I’m a useless bastard.”

It’s a few minutes before he gets a response. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit. I love to match,” Niall says before he opens his eyes to confirm Louis is actually standing over him and this isn’t some sort of dream. He reaches out and gets ahold of the hand Louis holds out for him, lets himself be pulled back up onto his feet.

Everything goes dizzy for a moment, pressure rushing in his head and his sinuses, fuzzing at the edges of his eyes, which does nothing to make Niall stop thinking this is all a rather elaborate mirage. But he’s still holding Louis’ hand. He drops it, even though it feels like the only thing anchoring him like it’s good weight.

Louis looks him over and asks, “Where’s the kid?”

“He’s with his grandparents.” They’d agreed to take him so Niall can sleep off as much of his cold as he can, finally get some rest. It’s been a particular sort of heaven to be alone, but it’s also been a particular sort of hell.

He misses Milo, like there’s another hole in his chest. He misses the small miracles, he misses holding him, he even misses the screaming. It’s been so empty.

“I’m -- they said if I wanted, they’d try to keep him.”

Louis looks at him sharply. “What?”

“I don’t -- I don’t think I can do this.”

“What are you saying?”

“I can’t do this on my own, it’s too much.”

It’s easier to put it on himself because it’s the truth. He’s not going to make Milo spend the rest of his life chained to a scrambling idiot who just doesn’t get it, who can’t ever be home for him. He’d thought once Louis wasn’t going to be dependable, but it turns out it’s Niall.

“You’re not alone. Fuck, I’m here.” Louis’ face crunches, finding that same angry fire from the last time Niall had seen him. They’re going to do it all over again, pick at the wound until it opens back up. “It’s the fucking divorce all over again.”

It’s too much, it’s too fucking _much_ , it shouldn’t be this unfair. People are meant to have only one disaster at a time, certainly not two, but even then, he’s not even sure which one he’d pick -- the disaster he’d buried two months ago or the one staring him in the face.

He looks at Louis, trying to find the balm within him, the comfort Celia’s told him he needs to find. “Just stop. Aren’t you tired?”

“Don’t. Don’t do this. Talk to me this time.”

Niall glances over the fence to Harry and Liam’s and back. He slides past Louis into the house, leaving the door open for him. They're really going to do this.

“You get it in your head that it’s fucking pointless to tell me what you’re thinking,” Louis says, the second the door closes behind him, “and then you just -- you decide it’s over. And I don’t get a word in edgewise. To tell you I don’t want to leave you.”

“That wasn’t,” Niall starts, unsure of how he was going to finish the sentence anyway. Not that it matters, because Louis keeps going.

“You gave me a business card for a solicitor,” Louis says, his voice cracking with the stress of it. “You told me you wanted a divorce and then you gave me a business card. Your mind was made up. If there’s anything that’s going to drain the fight out of a man, it’s that fucking business card.”

Louis swipes at his face desperately, catching up tears just as they fall. “God knows why I still love you and why you’re the only person I want to love, but I do. And it’s fucking hard to fight for that when it seems like I’m the only one who still feels the same way.”

Niall won’t feel guilty, he won’t let Louis get away with that. He doesn’t want to argue anymore, but he doesn’t want to shoulder anymore blame than he deserves. He’s been too good at that, he’s let anyone think whatever they want just so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

“You -- that is my _life_ , Louis. Being the only one fighting for everything. Planning for everything. I used to roll with anything, but if I rolled with what you were thinking, nothing would fucking happen! It’s a shit way to live. And it’s a shit way for you to finally feel the way I feel all the _time_. But I’m glad you do. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”

Louis looks at him, his mouth hanging open for seconds like finally, for the first time in his life, he can’t think of a single smart thing to say. Instead, incredibly, he just says, “Yes.”

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“But you did,” Niall says, pressing at his chest even as the weight lifts from saying everything he's spent years keeping to himself. “You think I _want_ to be like this? You think I wouldn’t rather it was like uni all over again? Gimme a laugh and a pint and my boy and I’m on top of the fucking world? That’s not enough. We’re adults now, we’ve got to act like it.”

Louis drops his head, his jaw steeling like he's looking for a reason to fight back. But then he says, “I’m sorry.”

Niall breathes in the calm after the storm, shaken but alive. Louis’ sorry.

“But I’m -- I’m trying. Do you see that? I was trying with you, and you kicked me out the second you lost your faith in me again. And I hadn’t even done anything.” Louis pauses before admitting, “This time.”

This is what he’s wanted, this is the only thing he’s wanted. He’d believed for so long it would never happen, wrapped up in a cynicism cemented by years of doubt that he refused to believe something could change. It had changed, Louis had changed.

“I’m sorry too,” Niall says.

“I'm trying to be the man you want me to be, but you have got to meet me halfway.”

“I will,” Niall says, and it’s a promise. It’s a promise to relearn how to give the benefit of the doubt, now that everything lies open between them. “I’ve just been -- so scared.”

“You don’t have to be.” He cups his hands around Niall’s face. “Life is -- too fucking short -- ”

“Don’t,” Niall whispers because he doesn’t know how much more of it he can take.

“It’s too fucking short,” Louis continues anyway, “not to spend all my time without you. Niall, I’ll do anything. Let me.”

This is what he’s wanted, this is what he’s wanted to ask for, for years and years. It’s easy to say, “Okay. You’re not -- I said I still love you, and I meant it.”

Louis looks elated, relieved, dead serious all at once. “What d’you want to do? Do you want to start over?”

That’ll put them right back to where they were. That’ll leave them vulnerable to make the same mistakes. Niall shakes his head. “No. We can’t just wipe the slate clean. I don’t wanna forget.”

“What then?”

“We fix it.” This isn’t easier, it’s never going to be easy if they do just this for the foreseeable future. It’s going to hurt, but it won’t compare to life without him. To not sharing the weight with the one person he wants to.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, “I’m gonna do this with you, okay?”

“Yeah.” It’s bloody mad, but yeah. They’re gonna do it together.

Louis gives him a smack on the side of his head, ruining the mood entirely to say, “You can’t give Milo away just because it got hard. You’re his guardian. I know you’re grieving and all, but. That’s fucked up.”

“I know.” Niall huffs a laugh, utterly unimpressed with himself. Selfish, he knows.

“You’re gonna be a great dad.”

“So are you.”

“Yes, I am,” Louis says with a certain nod.

It prompts a grin from Niall, another laugh that’s more impressed with Louis. He wishes he had Louis’ confidence, his ability to keep track of the plot. He’ll get there.

“I’m gonna go get our kid, okay?”

“Yes. Please,” Niall says.

He presses a kiss to Niall’s forehead, then presses his own forehead against Niall’s. “You owe Harry, by the way.”

Niall should have known, there’s not a single way he’s as fortunate as all that to summon Louis the moment he needs him, no matter how much he has the past few weeks. “I do.”

“We should have them ‘round for dinner.”

“Yeah.” He can do that. He knows it doesn’t mean forgetting, he knows it doesn’t mean moving on. It’s just finding more people to share the weight.

Niall kisses his cheek, and sends him off. He shakes in anticipation the entire time he waits for them, and it’s agonizing.

It’s not so much dread that haunts him, but potential that overwhelms him. He’s going to do it, with Louis, he’s going to do what they’d set out to do a few years ago and actually succeed. He’s going to get the life he’d thought he’d get, it’ll be the two of them going at it together.

They meet Niall in the kitchen, the two of them babbling at each other long before Niall can see them. And then it’s his family in one room, as much of it as he needs in this moment. He lets Louis hand Milo off to him, Louis’ hand sliding across his back as he steps away.

“Hi, hi, hi,” Niall whispers into Milo’s hair, swaying him gently back and forth. Milo babbles at him happily, shaking his clenched fist at him like he’s going to give Niall what for. Niall wishes he would.

When he turns back, Louis sets a familiar cream-colored business card on the table in front of him. Marriage counseling.

“Okay,” Niall says, catching Louis’ eyes. They’re bright, pleased, maybe a little in love, and Niall has to look away, his face burning.

Milo’s fingers twitch in Niall’s direction, so Niall holds up a hand for him. It’s a few moments before his hand clenches around Niall’s fingers.

“There’s a good lad,” Louis murmurs. And he is. Good lads, both of them, capable of driving Niall up the wall, sure, but they’re doing the best with what they’ve got.

Niall picks up this feeling, this memory, both of his lads with him, and tucks it inside him, a good one to keep.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> thank you again, to everyone i gifted these fics to, to everyone who read them and commented and kudos'd and said just the loveliest things, to everyone who metaphorically held my hand and told me i could do this, to everyone who helped carry the weight. i'm sorry i'm getting so sappy now, but i mean it. this little experiment, not to mention this whole fandom, has been an absolute joy start to finish.
> 
> if you need me, as always, i'm [here](http://wickershire.tumblr.com). love you. goodbye.


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